I am surprised New Yawk is far behind the times. Hospitals on the Mississippi Coast imposed similar restrictions to drug seekers in the early 1990s. They (the six larger hospitals) maintain and share a database of known drug seekers.
ER physicians are NOT primary care doctors and should prescribe only meds to treat acute ailments.
This is a common sense move for Bloomberg to make. This is the first thing he's done I can agree with.
I can’t disagree with him on this action either, especially since we all have health insurance now. Ok just a little sarcasm there....
But truly, if they are writing a 7-10 script for pain meds that is way too much to be walking out the ER door with. If one is still in that much pain post 3 days, one needs to be seen by a regular doctor for further treatment or should be admitted for further diagnostic care.
Tell that to the millions of people who see the ER as a walk in clinic that *never* closes and that *must* see you and who get most,if not all,of their health care there.I saw exactly that over a 20 year career in hospital ER's.
Mayor Bloomberg needs to stop being a quack doctor and do something about NYC’s infrastructure which is falling apart. He needs to get rid of the homeless and reduce crime (it still exists although you would never know it from Bloomie’s press releases), he needs to get rid of that stupid open mall at Times Square which frustrates taxi drivers, buses and trucks and, most of all, he needs to LEAVE THE ORDINARY TAXPAYER ALONE!
This is already going on in lots of places. Those entitled to free ER care (i.e. the homeless) are major offenders in getting the drugs and selling them. In Orlando, they are forced to take those types of meds before leaving the hospital.
While I agree that this is, for the most part, a common sense move, it should be done by individual hospital policy, not another blanket edict by a despotic leftist. I know, despotic leftist is redundant.
Even when Bloomberg does something right (very rare) it’s done the wrong way.
Another example of the new Amerika where our overlords restrict the rights and privileges of the responsible majority to (theoretically) protect a minority of dubious value.
this has been going on for a long time in most hospitals in the country, they all know who the drug seekers are and have do not give any narco’s to these people lists. saw this in the 70’s in san diego.