I believe the article gave the example of someone with a broken leg (bone?) being given a 20 day supply of drugs when the pain would only be significant for a few days. I have had a broken metacarpel (hand bone), on one occasion. I think I was given 2 days worth of pain killer which was enough. More recently I was in a car accident and had 11 broken ribs and a punctured lung. While hospitalized for 4 days had 2 days of heavy meds, 2 days of lesser meds, and for the plane ride home was given demarol, and was carrying a box which was sucking air out of my pleural cavity. Unfortunately, we had an unexpected landing and transfer to a different plane. I was late getting home and driven to the doctor to have the line pulled out of my chest. I was really hurting and pulling the line out hurt like hexx. Then I was given another 2 or 3 days of medium pain killers, went straight to bed and did not hurt much so long as I moved very carefully. I would NOT have approved of someone being given an unsupervised 20 day supply of the heavy meds I had the first several days.
I had a friend, now dead, who became addicted because of heavy meds after having legs partially crushed in an accident. Unfortunately, people most likely to become addicted are people who are in deep emotional pain, who accidentally discover that these meds kill their emotional as well as physical pain. This man once came to my door in the middle of the night and begged me to get him into a hospital to detox. I called a psychologist friend of mine who had him committed on a 72 hour hold. This psychologist often wrote family evaluation reports for child custody cases. After he met my friend’s family, he said this guy had the “most malignant mother” he had ever met. Needless to say the family quickly got my friend out of the hospital to continue on his self destructive path.
I’m not sure that’s a good enough case for Mr. Bloomberg to ration out painkillers to city hospitals. Eventually, somebody will come into the ER in massive pain, and there simply won’t be enough painkillers for him because the ER is approaching its government-imposed limit.