At the end of 2009 1,478,560 people were entitled to hold a medical card.
This represents something around a third of the population. During that year alone, more than five million prescriptions for anti-depressants, sleeping tablets or medication to help relieve anxiety were written for this group.
If demand for these medicines is as high among the rest of the population, that could represent something over 15 million prescriptions aimed at helping people recover emotional or mental stability in just one year.
If we are to be realistic, it is more than likely that these figures have risen in the intervening years, as so many lives, so many people’s idea of their own self- worth, have been challenged by deteriorating economic circumstances.
For such a small country with such a moderate population — 4.6 million — this is a disturbing picture, one describing deep and widespread pain and anxiety, managed only by the liberal use of powerful medication. A huge, possibly disproportionate, chemical response to the most human of human conditions.
Source: Irish Examiner, 05/08/2011
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