Easy access to an increasing number of medications generates more and more obstacles in treating patients. Doctors claim that the administration of certain drugs, without having a prescription, only worsens the patients’ state, and by the time the latter decide to visit a doctor, the organism will have developed immunity to the prescribed medication. Head of the inquiry committee on the examination of the pharmaceutics market’s state, MP Gheorghe Brega, specified for Info-Prim Neo that there are OTC (Over-the-counter) drugs, and medications that are non-OTC. “The Law covers a list of medications that can only be bought with a prescription. The list is made up of almost every drug, to the extent that patients’ should not be able to buy even aspirin at their will”, Gheorghe Brega mentions. The reality, however, is different. In their race for profits, many pharmacies will ignore the legal restrictions and sell almost any medication without asking for a prescription. The head of the committee claims that the issue arises from administrators, who hire under qualified staff. It is even worse when a patient asks for a product that is out of stock, and the pharmacist offers a variety of other drugs, under the pretext of them having the same effect as the drug needed. Another problem is the abundance of advertisements for medications. “A solution to this problem would be for inspectors from the Medicines Agency to stop sitting around in their offices, go out for inspections, and ultimately fine those agents who present irregularities”, says Gheorghe Brega. Tatiana Cliscovscaia, a family doctor from Chisinau’s Riscani district, claims that administering drugs without the doctor’s prescription leads the organism into developing immunity to other treatments, since disease-invoking bacteria have the property to adapt to different factors. Patients become immune, and when being administered the prescribed medication, the effect is null. “We are often accused that our treatments are useless on the patients. The problem lies within their responsibility from before addressing to a doctor. Usually, they buy the drugs that the pharmacists recommend, who are not all qualified. These drugs make them immune to treatment, and provoke complications that are harder to treat than the disease itself”, says Floresti family doctor Natalia Vitu. In a pharmacy, people who were waiting in line said that they only visit a doctor when the problem is acute. In all other cases, they prefer to buy the medications that they have bought before. “I don’t usually go to a doctor, because a consultation is very time-consuming. You have to spend a whole day in the queue, only to be sent by the doctor to have some tests run, where you have to wait again”, says a woman. OTC medications are usually vitamins and nutrition supplements. The Ministry of Healthcare has last edited the list of OTC drugs in February 2011. The list is available on the official website of the Ministry.