The problem is that Doctors are so busy that you cant get an appointment for a week and sometimes longer so if you have a sick child TODAY you cants wait 2 weeks. Its insane to add more things that you have to go to the Doctors for. ALSO there are not many bulk billing Doctors around so each time you go it costs you. I ahve a Health Care Card but still have to pay $39 each time I go to the Docs.

And I didn’t think there was anything untoward in a bottle of cough medicine nowadays

If you have to go to the dr for a prescription for cough medicine. I can see many people just soldiering on, not doing anything for themselves or kids. Gps used to scoff when I would talk about which cough medicine to buy for my kids. According to them, cough medicines don’t do much at all, more of a placebo affect

It definitely should not be sold in a supermarket. If it is sold in a pharmacy, either over the counter or by prescription the pharmacist should check if you know you are allergic to any of the ingredients and you have to be honest when asked what medications you are taking – prescriptions and non-prescription. A pharmacy can check interactions of different medications/substances. In fact some pharmacists pick up interactions better than GPs do. I have had to have changes made on more than one occasion.

This is a bit of a conundrum – I wouldn’t see a doctor for just the cold, but I may use cough medicine if it was really bad. I think I have only ever used it once or twice myself and a handful of times on my kids. I don’t think they should ban it as it gives relief when you have bad symptoms and going to the doctors in Tasmania isn’t free so it could just cause more problems. Maybe they just need to find a new active ingredient.

Who’d have thought a cough medicine could cause this type of problem. Don’t think many people would use the cough medicine if they needed a script for it.

This is a real concern, thank you for sharing.

Wow… I am really confused about cough medicines. Why are they available when I’m constantly reading that they’re not any good. Can someone provide some factual and informed detail to help me decide? And if you’re going in for surgery, you’re supposed to list everything you’re taking. I’m so confused.

I find these articles frustrating because they only present part of the picture…. people having surgery shouldn’t be using cough mixtures, yes I understand some surgery is unscheduled and emergency, and the hospitals should be checking what they medicines they have been taking…. it is already difficult to get cough mixtures for kids so imagine if they took them away and we just had to listen to our kids struggle through their cough with no mixture to help them…. perhaps an alternative needs to be found, or at least conclusive research.

would it not be better to find a different safer ingredient to replace this?

I find getting prescriptions really annoying though, it’s hard to get a doctor’s appointment…

Great move, but a better idea is to make safer ones, taking out dangerous ingredients. There are many natural alternatives and you can make your own with natural ingredients, google it. Good ole honey does the trick.

Yet another reason to talk to your pharmacist about drug combinations! Hospitals should also include asking if the patient takes/took cough medicine in their case history now too

Making them prescription only isn’t going to fix this issue as most doctors recommend cough medicine if the cough is persistent or bad enough. Removal of this ingredient will stop anyone from developing this in the future but won’t help those who already have it (wether they know they do or not). Seems like they need to include a question on wether the person going in for an op has used cough medicine and take it from there.

When an over the counter medicine contains dangerous ingredients, it should either go on script only or the dangerous ingredient should be reduces or removed.
The story tells this woman went in for something unrelated to the cold and tells she actually died on the table because of the cough medicine. If this truly is the case is the question I think, an operation for an aneurysm is quite serious.

I can understand their reasoning behind make it script only. Removing the ingredient would also work.

Banning the ingredient seems a pretty sensible idea.

Making it preception only isn’t really fixing the problem. Maybe it’s sonething they need to ask patients before surgery or include it as a question on the admission form.

I don’t like buying them because most don’t really work

This should happen sooner rather than later. The evidence is really compelling and the drug is already banned in other countries. Making it prescription only would be a viable option if they don’t want to ban it altogether. I’m glad I don’t use cough medicine anyway.