‘Mum where are we going? We’re going to the pharmacy again’

Ramona Deane says if she hadn’t turned herself in to police she’d still be abusing tramadol – and pharmacies would still be giving it to her.

The 41-year-old mother-of-six is at the centre of a case that has shocked the medical profession and led to urgent calls for doctors and pharmacists to use electronic prescribing.

Deane’s road from addict to fraudster began when she had her gall bladder removed shortly after the birth of her youngest son four years ago, and was prescribed tramadol and codeine after the operation.

‘‘You ask for it and they give it and give it and give it and next minute you’re taking it without pain.’’

Deane is a former New Zealand rep touch rugby player and says she’d never abused drugs before. But after a while she realised she was having to take more and more painkillers for them to be effective.

‘‘They actually did nothing in the end because I’d taken them for too long, I was just immune to them.’’

She stayed on the opioids for about two or three years, she says. She would take a whole tray – 10 tablets – in a day.

When her doctor stopped prescribing to her, ‘‘I used to just sneak off to the pharmacy and get Nurofen Plus because it had codeine in it.’’

In March 2017, Deane went for dental treatment in Manukau City shopping centre and was given a prescription for 10 tramadol tablets and some antibiotics.

A few weeks later she rang the clinic saying she’d lost her prescription. They sent her a new one, unsigned and undated.

‘‘That’s a no-no, you’re supposed to go and pick them up. I just photocopied it numerous times – I didn’t forge any signatures – and just went to pharmacies.’’

She admits she would wear a bandanna and tell staff she had cancer. ‘‘When you’re addicted to something, you’d do anything. I was a bit iffy because there was no signature. I thought ‘will they give it, will they not?’

‘‘I go to a pharmacy, hand it over, they say ‘OK, five minutes’ and give me the tramadol. About 10 times I went and they noticed something, so I’d go to the next one. I thought ‘nah, they won’t do it cos there’s no signature’, but they did.’’ Eventually Deane decided she needed to get clean.

‘‘I wouldn’t cook, I wouldn’t clean and I’m a person who likes doing everything. I was hurting my kids. ‘Mum where are we going? We’re going to the pharmacy again’.’’

Her 89-year-old grandfather, John Deane, intervened to bring her back to Waikato.

‘‘I dragged her out of Auckland where all the problems started, and brought her back home. I wanted to solve it myself, it’s a tough thing, when she first arrived it was bad – thieving, even pinching money from me.’’

Deane says for her family’s sake she decided to seek help from the Putaruru police. ‘‘The cops said ‘you’re not the only one – big sports stars get injured and get addicted to it too’.

‘‘They suggested I go to drug and alcohol services. I did that and they sent me to rehab.’’

She also admitted the fraudulent use of the script and was charged, eventually being sentenced to community work.

She’s been clean for about five or six months, she says, and takes the opioid replacement treatment Suboxone, which can also be addictive.

Deane’s now helping a woman who was addicted to synthetic cannabis.

‘‘I told her, ‘if you’ve got kids it’s gonna hurt your kids and it’s gonna ruin you’.’’

But she’s clear it’s up to addicts to change. ‘‘You’ve got to want to do it – half-hearted won’t work. And you’ve got to have a lot of family support.’’

Now Deane’s warning others about the dangers of opioid painkillers.

‘‘Try Panadol first. Opioids are addictive, they really are.’’

And she has a simple message for pharmacists which is sure to sting.

‘‘Do your job properly.’’

‘‘The cops said ‘you’re not the only one – big sports stars get injured and get addicted to it too’.’’ – Ramona Deane