There is no simple solution to opioid crisis

Re Doctors must reduce opioid prescribing, Editorial, May 21 With all due respect, the Toronto Star’s editorial is at best misleading and at worst a wanton act of blame and shame.

Simply telling doctors to prescribe less opioids is an overly simplistic response to a complicated problem.

The factors behind the current opioid crisis are multifactorial and well documented. They include misleading pharmaceutical advertising, profits over patients, lack of adequate pain management education in health care and a terrible disease known as addiction.

Physicians are committed to the appropriate prescribing of opioids and doing their part to help fight the opioid crisis gripping Canada.

In order to do this, physicians need the resources to prescribe alternatives. Unfortunately physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and massage are often services that require out-of-pocket payment.

The Star’s editorial also ignores the use of opioids for palliative and end-of-life care. The World Health Organization recognizes morphine as the gold standard for cancer pain.

Doctors are committed to being a part of the solution to the opioid crisis. But we need the proper facts communicated to our providers and administrators but also patients, families and caregivers.

Media bears some responsibility for this. Dr. Darren Cargill, Windsor Your editorial covered most of the challenges, including the shocking lack of pain clinics. There is also a lack of pain specialists and a further lack of training for family physicians to understand and treat chronic pain. Until there is a national pain strategy, doctors will continue to use the only tool they have to relieve the rapidly increasing numbers of people, especially seniors who suffer from chronic pain.

I am just an ordinary senior who values my quality of life and who sought to cope with chronic arthritic and myalgia pain and serious spinal pain. Chronic pain altered my life. The time and expertise of a chronic pain specialist gave me the tools to develop some quality of life.

I read this editorial during an art show at the Distillery District. My pain plan, careful use of partial opioids and much help and understanding from my family has allowed me to share my art with others. Don Graves, Burlington