CARELESSNESS ALLEGED

Chronicle (Levin), 9 June 1949, Page 5

CARELESSNESS ALLEGED

Presg

Doctors Taken To Task Over j Issue Of Brugs

(Per

Association)

■ CHRISTCHURCH.. June 4. ■ Forthright comment on the carele»> i preseription of dangerous. drugs in New 1 Zealand is expressed b-y Dr. A.. I>. G Blane, of Wanaka,, in his recentiy-pub lished book, ' ' Money, Medicihe and tfc. , Masses." . ' Urging the medical profession to; keep a keen eye on the possibility of. it ; members over-prescribing- habit-forui , fing drugs, Dr. Blane refers to excessivc prescriptions for the barbiturates, h« . roin, aird morphia^ • . ^ He eondemns the practice of - grescrib - ing morphia to relieve asthma, sayiix^ r_ that the; drug will either kill the pati •: ent, or induce a craying for. it. Dr.. Blane says that familiarity w.xth tho barbiturates appears to" have bred a contempt for the consequences .^of thei.-over-use. • " Dr. Blane." says that the daiiger of drug addiction in New Zealand ia greater, in theopy any fhte, 'becaum.there is nb barrier between .the". patjetit, on one hdnd, ,and the doctor and nv chemist on the otherV That iis tp aa,f, if a certain proportion of the; doetors artcareless in prescribi'n'g, '.and order. targoi quantities for people vvh.b r.eally. do not require them, then a few qf 'the patieut.are going to get to iike the drugs tf , they go to the doctor often enough. Hitherto, says Dr. Blane, New Zea land had been remarkabiy . free from di'hg addiction, but the few cases"" oi addiction "that are aeen, apart from opi um-smoking Chinese, are too frequenciv cases started bn the down ward path'b,. , careless medical prescribing, More and More Referring to the barbiturates (veronal, medinol, luminol, nemOutai) D, Blane says that ever since their. discov ery, each year has s'een more people swallovviug more barbiturates than arc good for them. The sleep-produeing qualities oi these drugs make them so 'easy to take and the restful repose is, so pleaaant to experience that minor • degi'ecs pf addiction are _ relatively common Many countries, like New' Zealand, have forbidden their sale except on. a doc ' tor 's prescrfption. But, he continues, the wisdom of restricting the sale of barbiturates to pa tients with medical prescriptions is oi limited value if the doetors are' careless in their manner of prescribing.. There can be no doubt that some doetors in New Zealand "dish them out iike sweets," Dr. Blane declares. The faliit is not common to New Zealand. It would almost appear .that fa miliarity with these drugs has bred q contempt ixr the profession to their potentialities. . * Once having acquired a taste for the .barbiturates, patients, can go to two or three different doetors and get a sap. ply from each. It is very disturbing to know, he says that not only have. the .barbiturates been prescribed to excess, but the dangerous narcoties, such as morphia and heroin, have also shown an unwarranted inerease, . Particularly is this true of heroin, the consumption of which has almost doubled between 1944 and 1940. It would be idle to pretend otherwise than that this is an exaniple o£ pernicious prescribing by • the profession, Dr. Blane claims. This substance, which is the most deadly of all the addietionforming drugs, is totally exeliided by some countries because it is doubtful whether it offers any advantage over the other members of the opiurn family, while the soeial consequences of addic tion are too grave to Warr.ant* its use. The conclusion, he says, is ineseapable that heroin has- been used in conditions where its use was not warranted. Some doetors use morphia to relieve sqeh conditions as' asthma, thereby running the risk pf either killxng the patient outright from asphyxia' by using a drug which slows the breathirig and lessens its depth, or if a fatal outcomo does not ensue, making him a" ready slave to a drug which temporarily blots ' out the misery of his trouble. . , New Urgency ' 1 Now that the State has. come on td the seene, it brings a new urgency ; to the problem of bad prescribing. The one certain lesson ■ that pharmaceutical ; henefits has taught New Zealand is that , the action of; a minority of doetors is a vyeighty reason for denying the indivit dual members pf the profession complete fr'eedom to order what they Iike and when they will, he declares; I Some sort of restriction and supervision must be imposed in the public in terest. The public can receive benelii from* modern medical science only il ( that science is properly organised.