I have to see a doctor twice a year to keep my medications; my mom has to go once every few months.

This makes them a gigantic amount of money. Thanks drug war.

For the first 150 years or so in the USA, you bought what you wanted over-the-counter, from aspirin to cocaine. Some people abused it, most did not… but then, only the drug maker makes money, not the clinic, hospital, doctors, nurses, staff, etc.

p.s. my very old mom at the end of her life has to pee in a jar a few times a year to prove that she isn’t abusing any drugs so that she can continue to get her drugs.

Other than antibiotics, whose misuse can actually affect someone other than the person misusing them, there is zero actual reason not to have literally every drug in existence be available “over the counter”. No one should ever have to get a doctor’s permission slip to access working medicine.

also adhd meds. we need you to fill out this multipage questionnaire and get your parents to fill out a different longer one. then you need to send them back and follow up on scheduling an appointment to talk with a specialist to tell them all the same stuff. but if your answers are too close to the ideal or if you mention stimulants at any point during your assessment we will assume youre faking it for drugs. if you make it past that we will try to get you to use a planner before we give you the shitty nonstimulant drug that maybe doesnt work at all but it takes like 6 months for us to figure that out. if you then finally get approved for stimulants you are only allowed to be prescribed a one month supply with no refills, so you have to come back every month to get a new prescription. but maybe your pharmacy doesnt have it so you need to wait until they do, or randomly try other pharmacies and hope because maybe they dont have it either and you arent allowed to ask if they do before hand. oh and hopefully you never move or need to switch psychiatrists because then we will make you go through all of this again and maybe refuse to give you the same prescription because that sounds like a high dose you dont need that much. have you tried the nonstimulant drug that probably does nothing? stimulants are addictive you know.

😑

This would be an improvement than how it currently is with the nhs…

If it makes you happier: other, non-trans related medicine is in a similar vein.

Oh, you’re having sleep issues from your anticonvulsants? We can’t make you switch, until you tried a few other expensive matresses, went to an up to multi year long examinations for sleep issues, took benzos, and none of them helped. Also we are barring ourselves to switch you meds if you’re gaining weight from them, because you were supposed to be on a diet and switch your hobbies to sports.

(TBH, a lot of sleep disorder stuff gets written off as “super health”, if the meds happened to make you sleep more.)

Thank the gods for the gray market

…at which point we will meet in a comity discussing why we shouldn’t give it to you and you will have to convince us otherwise without being present or being able to intervene. Best of luck, you’re gonna do great!

Also, you need to spill your guts to two people for over a year each and get them to write supporting essays.

Average Nordic healthcare

Who is this cutie