Most of the doctors dont give thiamine for alcohol withdrawal/toxicity to prevent korsakoff psychosis. we dont have thiamine injections/tablets in tamilnadu govt hospitals/medical colleges. we used to ask the attenders to buy them outside so that we can give it immediately. the problem is each 100mg vial costs around 48 rs. There is no thiamine hcl tablets available in TN as far i know.
So to give for 2 weeks the patient has to spend 700 rs just for thiamine, which we cannot ask the patients in govt.hospitals. But nevertheless we ask the patient to buy 3 vials for the first 2 days, so that we can start dextrose afterwards safely. even if the patient is willing to buy them outside after explaining the risks of not using it it is not widely available(even during daytime). The attenders wander 2-3 hrs to turn up and say no medical shop has the drug, please prescribe what is available. I…
