NHS Doctors Got Me Addicted To Drugs

In 2014, I was diagnosed with Anxiety and panic attacks by my local GP. The condition was so debilitating that at one point I couldn’t leave my own home for fear of having an anxiety attack whilst out.

After several months of suffering with the condition, I was prescribed a medication called Sertraline and I had to attend counselling for a few months. The steps the doctor took to help me were correct and did eventually succeed in curing my illness.

I have been on the medication for a few years and I was never told about any adverse effects of being on the medicine.

At the start of the year, I was sent a rather nasty letter by the NHS Buisness Service Authority stating that I now have to pay for the medication I take and that the charges now against me amount to the sum of £153.20. If I do not pay by 8th May, they warn, the charges will increase.

Now, since I received this letter, I have stopped taking the medication my GP prescribed and I have noticed my body’s reaction to not taking the medication being similar to a drug addicts withdrawal. Not to mention the fear of my anxiety resurfacing and going into a state of relapse.

Some may say that I should pay for the medication, but in this day and age, where every penny counts and more of us are in a state of poverty, it is not as simple as it sounds. The fact that the NHS doesn’t want to give people the medication that they need when it is as debilitating as it is, is only going to add to the social economic problems we as a society face today in the United Kingdom.