Bloomberg to New York: Feel the Pain!
Mayor Mike sticks his nose into yet another cranny of New Yorker’s lives:
Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday in an effort to crack down on what he called a citywide and national epidemic of prescription drug abuse.
Under the new city policy, most public hospital patients will no longer be able to get more than three days’ worth of narcotic painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet. Long-acting painkillers, including OxyContin, a familiar remedy for chronic backache and arthritis, as well as Fentanyl patches and methadone, will not be dispensed at all. And lost, stolen or destroyed prescriptions will not be refilled.
A mayor’s job is shovel the snow, catch criminals. Not this stuff.
If NYC has a problem with junkies and painkillers, I suggest they start dealing with the junkies. Instead, Bloomberg will crack down mostly on people who aren’t breaking the law, by doing what governments do best: Creating shortages of vital goods.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and guess this crackdown will in no way effect rich and powerful local politicians.
Watch it increase suicides and violent outbursts from normally nice people.
That’s an oak branch.
It always works out well when the government decides that they know medicine better than doctors do.
I can picture Bloomberg sitting at his desk with a crayon and writing this on a notepad.
Step 1: Consult doctors who works for me.
Step 2: Write awesome law
Step 3: List lots of exemptions to the law.
Step 4: Prescription pain killer addiction comes to an end.
No, really. I think the best quote is at the end of the article:
It starts out with, “More than two million prescriptions for opioid painkillers are written in New York City each year…”
Then it concludes with: “Officials could not say how many prescriptions were written at emergency rooms.”
Wow.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like bashing Bloomberg as much aa the next guy, but I’m not sure this is something that deserves much. It only effects Emergency Rooms. Emergency rooms shouldn’t be dispensing 30/60/90 day supplies of narcotics. If you’re in the ER for an emergency, the idea is to get you stabilized so you can go home and call your regular doctor for an appointment or admit you if really sick/injured. It’s really not the place to go for chronic pain management. The same goes for Fentanly patches or MS Contin, which are typically used for end-stage cancer patients or to manage chronic, severe pain. I think the 3 day limit is probably a bit restrictive, but 5-7 days should be sufficient.
Sorry, but I was under the impression that emergency rooms had people with actual medical backgrounds working in them. If that is true, I think it might be better for such people to be making decisions on what medicine should and should not be dispensed, rather than a politician who has a proven propensity to play nanny.
Pain management is a specialty, and one ER docs aren’t trade in.
I’ll assume you intended to use “trained.” Perhaps it’s relevant to point out that while ER doctors do have at least some training in pain management medication, New York City mayors generally lack any training whatsoever in that particular sub-specialty?
Did you honestly think he was going to stop his meddling in hospitals at withholding formula from newborn babies? A guy who would do that would do damn near anything.
ucfengr: realize that this will hit the poor the hardest, as many in fact use the ER as a primary care practitioner. The rest of us can go see our family doc. Bottom line: Prescriptions should be at the medical professionals’ discretion, keep the gov’t out of it. If the doc’s are prescribing for dubious reasons, there are existing laws to enforce for that.
It really shouldn’t, Bob. Would you think it a good idea for the ER to handle chemo therapy drugs for cancer patients? I wouldn’t because that type of treatment requires a long term relationship between doctor and patient. Chronic pain management requires the same type of relationship. ER docs aren’t trained to manage long term care, they’re trained to either admit the patient or stabilize him enough that he can go home and make an appointment with a regular doctor. It’s bad medicine for ER docs to be handing out large supplies of narcotics, bad for the doctor and bad for the patient.
Until you can pay for — and force — people into something other than ER visits, it doesn’t really matter what you think they should do.
Emergency Rooms exist for a purpose and that purpose is not to provide care for long term, chronic conditions. Pain management is a medical specialty for a reason. ERs are not the only alternative people have, even poor people. Bloomberg is not making medical decisions, he’s making policy decisions for how city managed hospitals will work, which is a lot more in his purview than mandating how large sodas will be. In this case it’s a reasonable decision. Take off the “hate Bloomberg” goggles for a minute and you might see that.
It’s bad medicine for a non-medically trained person (the Mayor) to be making medical decisions about other people.
Agreed by me, but not ucfengr. My statement that “Bottom line: Prescriptions should be at the medical professionals’ discretion, keep the gov’t out of it.” was answered by “It really shouldn’t, Bob” from ucfengr. So prescriptions should not be at the medical professional’s discretion in his view, additional governmental limitations are required. Because if they don’t exist, then ….what, exactly? I contend that there are existing laws to prosecute abuse, and this is another unnecessary over-reach by Mr. Bloomberg.
Fundamental disagreement.
ucfengr: In general, I agree, however your comments in reality, as opposed to polite fiction, are clearly inane and naive at best…
1. Patient in to ER, no insurance or no money for specialist – thus to ER – basic treatment, needs specialist – next appointment for semi-urgent – 10 days, given Soda-Man’s 3 day Rx;
2a. Now what – back for three more visits until whatever is fixed?
2b. No specialist available – market not open to self-pay or medicaid or simply not there – ?
The ED has become the option of care for a wide portion of the urban and rural community – and stupid rules out of the blue by people of limited understanding for the situation proves the rule of the Ignorance of Agencies and their Political Leaders.
So, what are the junkies, pardon me, “prescription drug abusers” going to do once their favorite opioid is no longer easily obtainable from the ER? Switch to Chesterfields? I may be naive, but I kinda doubt it.
Why don’t we just kill everyone? Then no one will break laws.