Niall: The costs of taking multiple medicines – The cumulative burden of medicines expenses
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Niall
Male
Age at interview: 45
Number of medicines: 7
Cultural background: British (Caucasian)
Niall really noticed the cost once he was taking five medicines.
When this first started, I started with the statin and the metformin. It was just two tablets a day, that's easy. No big deal. Then the antidepressant got added, so it was three. Then the Diabex … metformin is no longer available in 1 g and now I'm taking four of those. Then the two new medications are added and so now there's another two of those, plus the three fish oils. It's quite a lot, quite a lot to be taking. There's also the cost thing. When adding those two new ones, it doubled the payments per month. That's when I really noticed how much I was spending. I hadn't noticed so much when it was just a couple a day, taken once a day. Now I take 11, 12, 13 tablets ... yes, still taken once a day, but there's a lot more of it. You go, ‘Mmm. OK.’ You are dependent on quite a lot of medication.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.