Sometimes you go to the clinic for one problem and you get a certain medicine.  The next time when you go to the clinic for some other prob-lem and you get the same medicine.  Has this ever happened to you?

A lot of people think that the nurses don’t know what they are doing or are just giving them fake medicine.  They sometimes throw the medicine away thinking that it won’t work.  Have you ever done this?

The truth is, some medicines have many uses.  They can be used for several different kinds of problems because of the way they work in the body.   Medicines are often divided by categories.  For examples, Amoxi-cillin is an antibiotic that is given for many different kinds of infection.  However it will not work on all infections so there are other kids of anti-biotics for those ones. Panadol is in the painkiller category, just like Ibu-profen.  When you go into the clinic and have pain, you will usually get this.

Sometimes certain medicines can be in more than one category. Panadol is also an antipyretic, meaning that it brings down fevers.  So some-times you can go to the clinic and get anadol even if you don’t have any pain.

The nurses and doctors have years of special training and they know what medicines can be used for what.  It is important to take the medicine exactly how they tell you so that you know it will work.  If you don’t take the medicine as pre-scribed, they can sometimes stop working.  This can lead to drug resis-tance, which will be the topic of next week’s paper.

Remember these medicines are very expensive and in short supply at the clinics and hospitals.  When you throw them away you are wast-ing them and someone else who really needs them may not get them.

In last weeks issue of the voice, fve questions were given that you should ask when you go to the clinic and hospital.  Remember to ask these questions and follow the nurses and doctors directions and you will get better.  

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