Each person who went to the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) for an outpatient visit during 2016 left the institution with an average of 5 medicines, but considering that the same person went to a clinic 3 more times, he/she surely took many more medicines.
Data from the CCSS indicate that the institution delivered 82.2 million drugs last year, 2.6 million more than those delivered in 2015, which represents an increase of 3.3%.
Treatments are classified according to the unit of measurement of the presentation. In one large group, pills, capsules and tablets are included, while in another, there is everything that is comes in units: jars, tubes, ampoules, among others.
If we talk about tablets, almost 4 million tablets of Metformin, Lovastatin and the famous Acetaminophen were consumed.
The mentioned medicines are in the 3 first positions, among the 10 medicines of greatest consumption at Institutional level.
In the second group, saline solutions, Anti-inflammatory in ampoules , the famous tubes of rose cream and others are the most consumed drugs.
According to specialist Manuel Rojas, doctor of Internal Medicine Clinic, Costa Rica does not escape the increase of chronic diseases, as in countries with high-life expectancy. He considers that it is “expected” that this increase is reflected in the medical prescriptions.
the doctor thinks that the country is failing in prevention and example of it is that, although a few years ago, one of the biggest nutritional problems in the country was malnutrition, now it is overweight.
The doctor said that focusing more on preventive medicine, will help to avoid dispatching so many drugs to keep Costa Ricans stable.