Dealing with the spiralling price of medicines: issues and solutions.

Escalating cost of medicines is rapidly becoming a serious threat to patients and health systems. This trend has been documented to impact patient outcomes adversely. As clinicians and tax payers, it is our responsibility to be aware of the potential detrimental effects spiralling costs have on our patients, our community and our health system and to mitigate these effects by exposing this issue to our respective professional societies, representatives of the pharmaceutical companies that we interact with, government regulatory bodies and to patients who we are caring for. Only through understanding and constructive actions will we be able to provide the best quality of care to our patients and continue to enjoy universal healthcare in our country.