Opinion  

Being next door, people knocked on our door or were put through on the phone by mistake. Before we could say that the surgery was next door they were telling us all about their problem. Although there were quite a few different languages to decipher, it seemed the illnesses ranged from infected mosquito bites and stomach upsets to ear infections.

As we spoke to more people staying at the resort and told them where we were staying we found out who had contacted the doctor and the outcome. For earache and infected bites it seemed the doctor had prescribed a course of first-line and second-line antibiotics, to be used in succession if the first course did not cure the problem.

As some people seemed to wash their medication down with copious amounts of alcohol, nearly everyone I spoke with had taken both courses. In fact, most believed they needed to take both courses to ensure that the problem was cured.

The purpose in writing this is to raise the issue of the overuse or inappropiate prescribing of antibiotics, which I believe is a global issue. In the UK we have many concerns about antibiotic-resistant infections. There is the growing problem of C difficile and while there does appear to be a drop in MRSA, the numbers remain too high.

A great deal of hard work, time and energy has gone into tackling this problem. However, if we travel abroad and can so easily be given antibiotics, how can we hope to have any impact on this problem.

The issue of infection needs to be tackled internationally, in the same way as global warming. Globally, we have become dependent on antibiotics. They are all too easy to prescribe and patients often demand them because they believe they are needed to cure their ailment.

We need a huge publicity campaign highlighting the dangers of inappropriately taking antibiotics and we must encourage colleagues in other countries to be cautious when prescribing them.

I don't doubt that these are talks going on within various organisations and between countries across the world, but we also need to inform individuals. People must be made aware that some of their ailments do not necessarily require antibiotics and that the overuse of antibiotics could cause significant health problems in the future.