NDP concerned opioids are being overprescribed

A Saskatchewan man who received opioids to manage his pain says more needs to be done to prevent the drugs from being overprescribed in the province.

Jeremy Bohmann of Turtleford was given hydromorphone immediately after he showed up at a hospital to be treated for a herniated disc.

“I ended up staying in the hospital for 11 days on high doses of morphine and dilaudid which was causing me double vision, I was vomiting. It was not a good experience. I would much rather go to jail than go back to that hospital,” Bohmann said Tuesday.

Bohmann said he asked for non-opioid pain relief, but did not get any. He eventually went to his family doctor, who gave him a non-opioid.

Bohmann said based on the recent auditor’s report, the opioids that were prescribed to him put him at a higher level of addiction. He’s still having withdrawal from it, but he’s getting better every day.

He believes the experience illustrates the realities of the opioid crisis and how easy it is for someone to get opioids and then become addicted.

He said the provincial government needs to be aware of how opioids are being prescribed in health centres and how they are contributing to the addictions crisis.

Bohmann spoke about his experience at the constituency office for NDP Mental Health and Addictions Critic Danielle Chartier.

Chartier called on the province to implement the auditor’s recommendations for mitigating the misuse of opioids.

In her report, the provincial auditor noted that the prescribing of opioids is well above the national level and that the government needs to better support the identification of potential misuse of opioids.

The auditor’s report found:

• In 2018, 119 people died due to opioids in Saskatchewan, a province where the prescribing of opioids is well above the national level;
• The Ministry of Health needs to establish a risk-based approach to identify concerns in opioid dispensing in Saskatchewan pharmacies;
• The ministry needs to determine whether the Prescription Review Program helps reduce the misuse of prescribed opioids in Saskatchewan;
• The ministry should work with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan to consider requiring its members to review patient medication profiles prior to prescribing opioids; and,
• The ministry should confirm which prescribed opioids need to be monitored, and better support the identification of potential misuse of them.

Chartier wants the provincial government to look at implementing a system that would require physicians to review patient medication profiles before prescribing opioids.

“These recommendations will help us get in front of the crisis, and will certainly save lives,” Chartier said. “When it comes to their pain management plans, no one should have to go through what Jeremy did.”