LIMA — Lima Mayor David Berger isn’t backing down.
Despite drawing fire from the area medical community after describing what he saw as their “lack of ownership” on the issue of prescription opiates, Berger is standing by his assertion that opiate prescription practices are a key contributor to the rise of opiate and heroin addictions.
“I’m sure there are recreational drug users who are finding themselves having this problem,” Berger said. “But what has changed is that in 2015 in Ohio, 750 million opioid-based pills were prescribed, 750 million prescribed in a single year in a state of 11 million people.”
According to the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System (OARRS), the number of opioid doses dispensed to Ohio patients was 750.6 million in 2014, dropping to 701.2 million in 2015. Opioid prescriptions dispensed to patients numbered 12.2 million in 2014, dropping to 11.2 million in 2015.
“I’m not talking about chronic pain,” Berger said. “I’m not talking about the pain that comes through cancer. I know what that pain is. I had a daughter that died of cancer. This is about sports injuries where a kid gets prescribed 30 days of Percocet. There is no best practice in emergency rooms, where one doctor prescribes three or four days and another prescribes 30 days.”
Ohio State Medical Association media relations coordinator Reggie Fields maintained the medical community is already addressing the issue of opioid prescription practices, and now is not the time for finger pointing.
“Over the last four consecutive years, the number of opioid pills dispensed in the state has declined, and in that same time, the number of prescriptions written has declined,” he said.
St. Rita’s Medical Center chief medical officer Dr. Kevin Casey said St. Rita’s is working to both help those already taking opioids wean off of the drug, working with Coleman Behavioral Services to help with treatment, while also helping those not taking those drugs to be overexposed.
When it comes to the likelihood of addiction, there are more factors at work than simply the length of time someone takes a drug, according to Casey.
“Addiction is very nuanced,” he said. “An individual responds differently to some medications than to others. There (are factors like) the type of injury, the type of pain, how long it’s expected to last and the individual’s pain tolerance. There are addictive personalities and addictive genes. This is too complex of an issue to say it’s from one (factor.)”
Both St. Rita’s and Lima Memorial Health System are working to optimize pain treatment, according to Casey and Dr. Kha Tran, Lima Memorial’s vice president of medical affairs.
“It is routine practice for LMH providers to properly interview patients to better understand a patient’s pain before prescribing the appropriate type of medication, whether that is a narcotic or non-narcotic,” Tran said. “Often no medication is needed at all. Exercise and physical therapy can be very effective. If a narcotic pain medication is needed, the patient has to sign a pain contract that, among other things, requires the patient to follow up regularly with the provider, submit to drug tests, and be compliant with treatment plans.”
Ultimately, both Berger and the physicians agree that this issue of opiate abuse is not going away, with more work needed to be done.
“I appreciate the mayor’s interest and concern,” Casey said. “We need to keep the conversation going.”
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