Editor, The Times:
On June 1, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, in all its wisdom, announced a list of 15 standards and 11 guidelines on opioid prescriptions in its “professional standards and guidelines safe prescribing of drugs with potential for misuse/diversion.”
It was intended to recognize doctors’ responsibility “to mitigate its contribution to the problem of prescription drug misuse, particularly the over-prescribing of opioids, sedatives and stimulants.”
What the College has accomplished is to make it impossible for terminal cancer patients and others in severe, chronic pain to get any relief.
My husband has terminal cancer.
When he had major surgery on a lung, one of the most painful procedures a person can experience (he likened it to having one’s chest hacked open with a machete), he was sent home with no pain medication.
He was told to take two aspirin and don’t call in the morning. I am exaggerating; it was Tylenol they suggested, which didn’t touch his excruciating pain.
The stress and anxiety a cancer patient goes through is tremendous.
My husband has also been refused anti-anxiety medication.
Of course we all know it is those damn, terminal cancer patients who are responsible for all the fentanyl deaths.
They crawl out of their death beds to sell it on the streets to innocent young people or, worse yet, they become addicts themselves.
It is better to let them suffer.
The College has succeeded in forcing those in severe, unbearable pain to medicate themselves or consider seeking drugs on the street, putting more money in drug dealers’ pockets.
The number of deaths among young people has steadily increased since this plan was implemented.
Linda Davidson
Kamloops, B.C.
