New fentanyl patch program promoted as a lifesaver
Opioid overdose deaths have more than doubled in recent years
Pharmacists, doctors and police believe the new fentanyl patch-for-patch bill passed early this week at Queen’s Park is a major step toward dropping the prescription opioid overdose deaths in this region from 33 annually to zero.
This area implemented its own voluntary program last year, requiring people using these powerful narcotic painkillers to return their used patches (which still pack plenty of medication) to the pharmacist in order to get new ones. But passage of the bill makes it mandatory and adds some new requirements that should save lives, Peter Dumo, past-president of the Essex County Pharmacy Association, said at a news conference held outside the Ziter Pharmacy on Howard Avenue.
“Our hope is within three to six months, this process will be seamless and we’ll start seeing a decrease in the diversion of fentanyl patches,” he said.
The numbers are “humbling,” according to Essex County Medical Society president Dr. Amit Bagga.
Every 14 hours, one person dies from an opioid in Ontario. More people die from opioid overdoses than from motor-vehicle accidents. And fentanyl patches are responsible for an increasing proportion of those overdose deaths.
Tragically, a child can become the accidental victim when a person tosses a used patch in the garbage and the child gets a hold of it. Or the patch can be sold or taken by others who may sell it or use it themselves.
Between 2009 and 2014, 655 Canadians died from fentanyl overdoses, said Dr. Gary Kirk, the region’s medical officer of health. Fentanyl is a powerful narcotic delivered through a patch that gradually releases the drug over a three-day period. But when abused or taken incorrectly, it is many times more potent than morphine, codeine, oxycodone and heroin, Kirk said, reporting that opioid overdose deaths have more than doubled in recent years, from 15 in 2007 to 33 in 2013.
Because of addiction, people are abusing fentanyl, said Windsor police Chief Al Frederick. “And when people abuse a drug, there’s criminal activity involved in the sale and profiteering of that drug.”
He said so far this year, there have been seven deaths from fentanyl overdoses.
“This is a real problem that can be prevented through partnerships like what you see here today.”
The new bill — that will take some months to come on-stream — requires a physician to write on the prescription a single pharmacy where the prescription is to be filled. Then the doctor’s office must call the pharmacy to notify them the prescription is on the way. The pharmacy is then required to work with patients, informing them of their responsibilities. And the patient is given a card that used patches are stuck to, and which is returned to the pharmacy when it is full. Then the pharmacy will review the card, and then destroy it, before the old patches can be replaced with new ones.
Dumo is confident the system will eventually work.
“Patients are going to forget the card, doctors are going to forget which pharmacy to go to, there’s going to be a learning curve,” he said. But the program is necessary, he said, “to minimize this scourge on our population.”
The existing local Fentanyl Exchange Program doesn’t have statistics yet to indicate whether it has been successful preventing overdose deaths, but Dumo said his pharmacy has initiated discussions about the potential dangers of using the patches.
“It prompted a couple of my patients to re-evaluate should I even be on this medication,” he said, explaining that in one case the patient went off patches and — with consultation from the doctor — started a new strategy of pain control that worked just as well.
“So lots of good can come from this.”