Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Obtaining Drugs from Canada

Over the past two to three American regimes, American health debates has been heating up in the recent past. A huge part of that debate in Washington now is whether the prescription drug prices in America will be lowered substantially or whether the potent pharmaceutical industry will go on with charging the Americans the worlds highest prices for their medicines. It has become quite exorbitant that the country is almost crippled by declaring most Americans bankrupt. This was however rescued by the overwhelmingly bipartisan majorities in both houses, when the senate voted to add some voice to the agriculture bill which allowed both the pharmacists and the wholesalers to import prescription drugs from outside countries at a significantly lower prices as long as they meet the Food and Drugs Administration safety standards.
   
Among the leading countries that Americans have a tendency of importing considerably cheap prescription drugs from include Canada. Canadian medicine are said to be significantly cheap compared to the American prices. As (Kaiser 2009) writes After investigating several Canadian pharmacies, my wife and I paid 624.77 for a three-month supply of drugs at an online Vancouver registered pharmacy. These same drugs cost us 1,208.04 buying at Walgreens, Target, and Kmart where we shopped for the lowest prices. This meant that they saved at least 624.77 inclusive of shipping expenses. The importation of prescription drugs from Canada can save from 25-80  of dollars compared to purchasing similar prescriptions in America.

Benefits of importation of drugs from Canada to individual Nurses
The importations of prescription drugs from Canada is of great importance to individual nurses since it aids in ensuring that the patients under their care are able to access all their medications on time at an unlimited supply. This is vital since that individual nurse is usually held responsible incase the patient doesnt get all the medical attention that they require while under their care. These importations also spare individual nurses the task of telling their patients that the only medicine that can help improve their health is not affordable to them in their own countries though manufactured there.

Benefits of importation of drugs from Canada to the nursing profession   
Importation of drugs from Canada has also positive and negative impacts to the nursing profession. One of them is that according to the Food and Drugs Association, the Canadian Drugs are safe. This is because the rules and regulations in Canada are very strict as those in America and so far there are no statistics indicating any loss of life that has resulted from taking prescription drugs from Canada. This is rather important to the nursing profession because it ensures that all the patients are able to access healthy and affordable drug supply. (Adams 2004)
   
It is also important since it maintains a steady supply of drugs in both the government and private hospitals at reasonable prices. It also makes available rare medicines for deadly diseases for instance, One of the starkest examples was Tamoxifen, a widely prescribed breast cancer drug, which sells for one-10th the price in Canada it sells for in the United States. But it is not just Canada. While Americans pay 1 for a prescription drug, that same drug is sold in the United Kingdom for 65 cents, France for 57 cents, and Italy for 51 cents, even though many of these drugs are manufactured right here in the United States. (Sanders 2000) This simply means that hospitals can be able to access such drugs affordably for their patients.
Benefits of importation of drugs from Canada to the societys health
   
The American society are the most affected group of people affected by the importation prescription drugs from Canadian that, many people in America are paying too much money for their prescription drugs and therefore the people opt to take a road trip to Canada or by the dugs online since the drugs in Canada on average costs one-third as much as they cost in the U.S. there is an palpable opportunity slash costs and perhaps save lives.

There is also the argument that importation is free trade. This is because it is unavoidable and posses beneficial outcome to globalization and technology. In addition to that, most of the drug companies are seen to be evil by the Americans. (Bast 2004) This is evident by the rate that they are growing. They exploit taxpayers investments through medical research and they spend more on marketing. On the other hand, importation of drugs from Canada can have dire consequences to the Society. For instance, not all drugs in Canada come from Canada. Some of the drugs come from second and third world countries which have less protection laws than the ones in USA and Canada. Another limitation to the importation of drugs to the society is that the drug supply in Canada is not enough to satisfy the U.S demand. Furthermore, not all the Canadian pharmacists are approved by the FDA. This therefore makes it possible for counterfeit drugs to fall in the hands of unsuspecting Americans. (Partnership for Safe Medicines 2008)

In conclusion, in order for the nursing medical field and the society at large to benefit from the imported drugs from Canada, there must be an introduction of tighter regulations on the safety of these drugs. Moreover, the Federal Government needs to come up with ways of controlling these prices and make these prescription medicines more affordable and available for the majority of the people.

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