Posted on 03/31/2016 6:02:17 AM PDT by Wolfie
New Jersey hospital emergency room becomes first in U.S. to end use of opioid painkillers
PATERSON, N.J. -- St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center announced it has become the first hospital in the country to implement a program that will manage patients' pain in the emergency room without the use of opioid painkillers.
Painkillers most frequently used in the emergency room in the past were oxycodone, vicodin and percocet, according to Dr. Mark Rosenberg, the Emergency Department chair.
“Our job here together is to look at the whole equation and understand how we can stop people from going from a prescription, to an addiction,” he said.
About a half-mile down the road from St. Joseph’s, recovering addicts are lining up for treatment at Eva’s Village.
Demetria Washington said she started on pills before moving on to heroin.
“Then I couldn’t get to it no more and a girlfriend of mine was like well you could just try heroin. And I tried it and I liked it.”
She used drugs for 18 years, before entering recovery. She’s been clean for 8 years and currently works as a recovery specialist at Eva's.
“A lot of people use prescription drugs and then they end up turning to heroin,” she added.
Washington’s co-worker told us that she warns her son about the dangers of abusing prescription painkillers everyday.
“That’s what I tell my son because he’s seen me at my lowest point,” said Geraldine Lowe.
Lowe is also a recovering addict and a recovery specialist at Eva’s Village.
"As a matter of fact, and I’m not ashamed to say it, he was born addicted to drugs,” she said, adding that her son is now using pills.
America’s pill problem hits close to home, even for the head of St. Joseph's Emergency Department. Dr. Rosenberg said his mother-in-law recently broke her wrist.
“She went to the local emergency department without telling me, and she got 5 percocet and told to see her family doctor. Family doctor gave her a prescription for 100. She’s 93 years old. 100 percocet. The point being is we, our culture is such that it’s really, really out of control,” said Dr. Rosenberg.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, more people died from drug overdoses in 2014 than than in any year on record, beating out deaths caused by car crashes and guns. Heroin and painkiller abuse are driving this problem, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“In 2012, there were enough opioid prescriptions issued - nearly 260 million - to give every man, woman and child in the country their own bottle of pills,” said U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
Federal and local lawmakers, law enforcement and health officials met for several hours at St. Joseph’s today to discuss how to stem the tide of opioid addiction.
“Everybody is at this table that should be, except for a few other people. We need the pharmaceuticals here, because they're shoving drugs down our throats,” said U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ).
St. Joseph’s Emergency Department, one of the busiest in the nation, has already begun to treat over 250 patients with alternative medicine or treatments, who would have otherwise received opioids. While opioids will still be used by St. Joseph’s staff to treat chronic pain, they will no longer be the first line of treatment.
“We have to acknowledge the fact that opioids are an essential drug to managing people with severe pain, like cancer pain,” said Dr. Rosenberg.
Federal legislation known as the Comprehensive addiction and recovery act is currently pending that could provide federal grants to states and local governments to combat the national epidemic of heroin addiction and prescription painkiller abuse.
It passed the Senate this month, it has not been voted on in the house
The ignorance about opioids is remarkable and widespread.
No, there is no liver toxicity to (pharmaceutical) opioids. The only "toxicity" is 1) respiratory depression which can be fatal when taking street opioids that have no quality (potency) control, and 2) constipation which can cause serious bowel obstructions. Beyond that are infinitesimally small adverse toxicities that are more related to autoimmune situations.
More people have been damaged by drugs developed to avoid opiates than by opiates.
All of the non-steroidal antiinflammatories have more toxicity than opioids - aspirin like drugs cause gut bleeding, kidney damage and tinnitus. Acetaminophen causes liver damage.
So many suffer from the widespread bete noir to opiates. So lets have more restrictions on them so we drive more people to the more toxic drugs?
Opioids are like chainsaws - very useful and very capable of causing damage unless you know what you are doing. I vote that we start treating each other as capable of learning how to use a chainsaw.
Hmmm, I have worked in both and don’t agree.
But I don't have any problem at all with a hospital that decides to take them out of the ED.
Unless you have worked in an ED or urgent care center you have no idea how much time and money is wasted in dealing with whingeing drug seekers. And it's your money, because 80% of them are on Medicaid or subsidized Obamacare plans.
THREAD WINNER.
Hospitals waste a lot of time and taxpayer $ on people faking symptoms just to get drugs.
My father is 84 and in a nursing home. He is dying from COPD and it looks like he won’t make it through the weekend. He is in pain non stop from all the coughing. Yesterday they gave him Tylenol.
They said as long as he is lucid, he shouldn’t be subject to medication that will effectively put him into a permenant semi conscious state.
Curcumin c3 complex with bioperine once/day is effective.
Exactly!
What I find amusing, if predictable, are the headlines about HEROIN! But when you read the article or watch the special it turns out the real problem is prescription opiods. But I guess that’s just how you roll when Big Pharma is a major advertiser.
Pain causes far more distraction at work than a proper dose of opiates.
I heard somewhere that all this outcry against opiates is really about money.
Basic old time meds can’t be patented. So they aren’t a big money maker.
It’s always about the money.
That is so wrong.
I still have a bottle of a pain med that has 150 little white pills (not sure what it is but I am pretty certain that it is an opioid) that the doctor gave to me when I had back issues. I always wondered if the pharmacy or doctor had made a mistake. One hundred and fifty pills is a huge quantity.
Don't know why I never toss the old meds but I joke with my wife (sadly) that we could open up a pharmacy. We should clean out the closet.
Side question/comment: many people dump old meds into the toilet and flush them. I read that medications are not filtered at the water treatment plant so any meds end up in the city water supply.
Hospice? If deemed hospice, then the doctors can prescribe anything and everything to help with the pain. Interestingly, they won't prescribe anything that will extend life like antibiotics but pain meds? — no problem.
when there is legitimate pain for the medication to work against, there's no high or giddiness. This was once explained to me by a doctor. I've found it to be true.
Trust me, I’ve had two gallbladder attacks in the past six months, I know pain and in the hospital they gave me morphine both times. Luckily the pain part is not chronic for me. I think it’s a good medicine for surgeries and acute pain but it shouldn’t be a pain management unless there’s no other alternative works well.
Let's face it, you're never gonna stop stupid people from doing stupid stuff. If they have an addictive personality, they will likely find something else to use beside Rx painkillers. Heroin or derivative of it would likely be the drug of choice. We've had a so called “war on drugs” for decades...hasn't changed a thing. There are more drugs now than when Nixon began the WOD’s.
Just another big gubbamint push to control every aspect of a person's life.
I have folks very close to me struggling with chronic pain. Dad and F-n-law. W/O their meds, they are consumed with with pain. Quality of life greatly diminished.
I often wonder what people did before medicines for pain, antibiotics, etc. were discovered and developed. They probably suffered in agony and eventually died. Life was he!! back then.
I herniated a disc in my neck. Laid in bed for 3 weeks with my arm over my head in a kinked position taking 750 vicodins every 2-3 hours that barely touched the pain.
When the pain started subsiding a bit I backed off the Vicodin. Got up and went into the kitchen where hubby said....what’s wrong? Sick. Sweating, nausea, shakes, etc.... H laughed and said...you’re addicted. I took them and flushed them down the toilet.
I’ve taken them since after a surgery but am very careful not to take them for any length of time.
I can’t take morphine. Turns me into the The exorcist with my head spinning round and spewing guacamole.
Can’t take straight codeine. Anaphalactic shock.
I can take derivatives but am very careful with them.
Gabapentin? Unghh.....
My sister tried it for chronic rheumatoid pain and restless leg syndrome, and had horrible nightmares.
I developed Lateral Migraines six years ago. I was having migraine pain and vertigo weekly, so my neurologist prescribed Gabapentin to prevent the migraines entirely. It worked, but it put me to sleep within the hour.
I got a great nights sleep, but I had constant vertigo. Had to switch to Depakote. I’ve been Migraine free since.
With the Vicodin, that was true with me.
With the Morphine, there were hallucinations. I guess some folks could enjoy that. It seemed to happen to me when I was out, more or less delirious.
I wouldn’t have known without an observer.
I totally agree!
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