Vend-a-drug
(Medicine vending machine: Shanghai, China)
Here, a peculiarity of the copy market, a vending machine trading solely in pharmaceutical products –surely taking self-medication to a new level. There was no time unfortunately to take five minutes and sample the machine’s twenty-four hour access to medication. After all, it is quite possible that to access the goods inside, a password from a doctor is required or a scan of a prescription slip. Somehow I doubt it though.
It seems as though the screen gives multiple options to determine exactly what ails the user – perhaps this system works very well for painkillers and cough medicine but I can’t help imagining that this yellow box is a hypochondriac’s heaven, a Pandora’s Box of trouble. I’m also not sure that I’d trust a machine located in a market famed for cheap copies of better quality items. This doesn’t look like a place I would trust if I were in desperate need of medication. Well, ext time I see one of these vending machines, I’ll be sure to stop and have a go. The machine might discover that I am deficient in some manner and be able to suggest something to help. If we had such a system in the UK, I’m pretty positive that there would be outcry. But it would be easier than queuing for fifteen minutes in the chemist for twelve paracetamol.
– Today Rosie is in the UK –
