“Unfathomable’: How 1.6 million pills from a small-town doctor helped fuel the opioid crisis in Ohio
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Margaret Temponeras started her medical career in a small town as a family doctor. She ended it a felon, a rogue physician who authorities say fanned Ohio’s opioid epidemic with a prescription pad.
From 2006 through 2012, Temponeras ordered more than 1.6 million pills of hydrocodone and oxycodone from her offices in the tiny town of Wheelersburg, along the banks of the Ohio River.”
Disney Under Fire After Leaving Cruise Staff in Bahamas
Disney Cruise Line is defending its decision to leave crew members on Castaway Cay, its private island in the Bahamas, to ride out Hurricane Dorian.
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All staffers are safe after spending Sunday in a specially-built shelter, specifically designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. Dorian is a Category 5 storm with 185 mile-per-hour winds that devastated the northwest Bahama islands.
Disney noted that Castaway Cay is located 45 miles south of the most significant portion of the storm. Still, the company came under fire after the sister of one of the employees tweeted out her concerns.
Disgusting.
How is it that no patient, no family member, no other doctor, no cops, no one at all in that town noticed this? I’m not trying to blame the victims here, but how can a doctor do this and get no complaints?
Opioid purchases connected to Temponeras by week
In a single week in May 2010, she ordered 37,900 doses of oxycodone. Assuming 4 doses per day (high), that’s enough for 1353 weeks. It was hard to find good data, but it seems that a normal prescription is for less than a week. So that would mean that she was writing prescriptions for 1353 people or more. Assuming a 5 day work week, 8 hours per day, that would be 270 prescriptions per day, 33 per hour. 2 minutes per patient.
Nope. No red flags here. /s