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DEA Crackdown Hurts Nursing Home Residents Who Need Pain Drugs
3 Comments
Heightened efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack down on narcotics abuse are producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly patients needed pain medication, according to two Senate Democrats and a coalition of pharmacists and geriatric experts.
Tougher enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, which tightly restricts the distribution of pain medicines such as morphine and Percocet, is causing pharmacies to balk and is leading to delays in...
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LAK
over 3 years ago
4 comments
People who pick up drugs should sign for them and a copy should be mailed to the administrator of the institution where the patient is located.
whtrose
over 3 years ago
2 comments
This is certainly a "Between a rock and a hard place" situation. On the one hand, patients do not need to be placed in the position of suffering because someone else wants to steal their medication to get high; On the other hand, some sort of security measure must be created to ensure that the amount of medication prescribed for the patients goes strictly to the patients.
Faxing a copy of the handwritten prescription to the pharmacy is not a bad idea. I would add passing on a copy of this to the patients for keeping in their records as well as whoever picks up or receives the medication for the patients signs for it so, if a discrepancy occurs, it can be traced. It is an extra step but it could alleviate some of the issues surrounding prescription control and patients would not have to suffer due to delays in receiving their medications.