Delays will ‘cost lives’
Coroner calls for fast-track of painkiller database
A CORONER has warned too many people will die of painkiller overdoses before a national real-time prescription monitoring service of opioids is implemented in an estimated five years.
The Federal Government has said a system will be in place by the end of the year but a Southport Coroner says it is likely to take five years for that system to be in operation in Queensland.
Coroner James McDougall made the comment as he handed down his findings into the overdose deaths of four Gold Coast people between 2012 and 2014.
“The number of deaths that will occur in the interim whilst implementation is taking place, or another system is developed, is alarming,” he warned.
“Coronial statistics indicate an annual death toll from prescription opioids approaching 1500 people each year and increasing.”
Mr McDougall recommended the State Government fund and implement the service within the next two years and also provide better education to general practitioners about prescribing opioid painkillers, which can include the strong pain relief drug fentanyl – a stong synthetic opioid that killed the rock star Prince and is said to be 100 times stronger than morphine – and oxycodone, a painkilling opiod analgesic often called “hillbilly heroin”.
The coroner also recommended the Federal Government ban pharmaceutical companies from promoting the drugs to doctors.
His recommendations came after an inquest into the deaths of William John House, 30, Jodie Anne Smith, 41, Daniel Keith Milne, 40, and Vanessa Joan White, 38, who all died of prescription overdoses.
In all four cases the victims had gone to multiple doctors to gain access to multiple prescriptions of high-strength opioid painkillers.
Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles and a spokeswoman from the Federal Department of Health promised to review Mr McDougall’s recommendations.
“Queensland Health will … assess what further work needs to be undertaken at a state level to implement a real-time prescription monitoring system,” he said.
Mr Miles said the State Government would look at the system being implemented in Victoria.
“Queensland has committed to developing a system that connects to and interfaces with the Commonwealth system to achieve a national solution,” he said.
The Federal Department of Health spokeswoman said Canberra was working with states and territories to finalise a prescription monitoring system to reduce the risks of misuse or abuse of controlled medicines.
She said a system was likely to be in place by the end of the year.
Gold Coast Medical Association president Sonu Haikerwal said the decision was only part of the problem.
She said doctors needed to look at pain management holistically in order to prevent over prescription of potentially deadly opioid painkillers.