Opioid epidemic continues unabated

[Angrboda]

There is much transfer you in both directions. One of my girl scouts dad's was in a very bad car accident some years ago where he had a servere spinal injury. For years he could not walk at all and just recently he's found some water therapy that helps him. But he's in constant pain, and sure to doctors afraid to prescribe long term pain meds, he's been without for some time. Over a year now, at least. His family matches with signs saying their dad deserves quality of life! But I guess to many local docs are afraid of the long term consequences considering the epidemic. They don't look at his individual case.

Pain management, particularly in the case of those suffering terminal illness, has a long way to go. Being invisible, it's often left up to the subjective judgement of the professionals involved who may be motivated by concerns wholly unrelated to the care of their patient. The big problem that I see is that corporations like McKesson are continuing to contribute to the problem by ignoring controls in place, and they are being abetted by the justice department which is basically doing nothing. Re-educating doctors is an important part of improving the situation, and that means helping them come to sound decisions when opioids are appropriate instead of largely avoiding them when possible. But another dimension of the problem is doctors who just don't care, as well as those illegally funnelling prescriptions to the black market. Neither problem is going to be solved until the administration and the justice department take these problems seriously, but it seems they have other priorities.