As clinicians, we are bound by professionalism and our ethical responsibilities to do no harm and to do what we can to address the pain and suffering of our patients. When powerful pain relieving opioid medications were introduced a few decades ago, they seemed to be a way to do both. We now know that […]
A call to the emergency room announced that the ambulance was on its way. Joey, a middle-aged oilfield worker, was experiencing a suspected toxic ingestion of the opioid, fentanyl.
Hundreds of codeine tablets stolen from the medicine cabinet of an elderly person living alone in a rural community. Hydromorphone tablets being distributed at weddings and high school parties. Fentanyl patches being cut up and sold for a profit on the street. This is the reality of the opioid crisis in Canada today
By all accounts we are in the midst of a deadly drug epidemic so severe and widespread few people in North America will remain untouched by it.
“The misuse of opioids has grown exponentially with devastating consequences” – First Do No Harm: Responding to Canada’s Prescription Drug Crisis (Canadian Council on Substance Abuse, 2013).
