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Sweetening the pill

Anecdotes abound about absent-minded people whose families had to resort to all kinds of strategies to make them remember to do the one thing that is the most difficult to keep in mind after remembering not to leave wet umbrellas behind.

That is, taking one’s medicine in time. There is the story of the man whose wife pinned a reminder on his coat-tails so that strangers could stop him on the road to tell him familiarly that it was time to take his next dose. As life has become complicated and illnesses long-drawn, plastic box manufacturers have made a small fortune marketing little contraptions with compartments, each one marked after each day of the week, to make it easier to arrange one’s medical dosages. However, none of them beats the ingenious initiative taken by a pharmacy chain in the UAE.

The Ras Al Khaimah-based Planet Pharmacies chain has branched out in Abu Dhabi with a new service — sending SMS alerts that would remind patrons to take the medicines they have bought in due time. As Majdi Fahmi, director-general of the chain, said, patients with chronic illnesses are required to take medicines for a long period of time. However, many forget to take their medicines at the right time every day, which leads to the drug losing its efficacy. The chain’s 50 outlets in the UAE, in addition to 92 more in Saudi Arabia and Oman, will now render the service free. It would undoubtedly be an important social service and the absent-minded gentleman’s wife can now probably look forward to discontinuing pinning those little memos on his shirt-tails.