It has been almost 2 weeks – and counting …
the news coverage of the airline pilot that committed suicide and took another 149 innocent lives with him as he flew a commercial airliner into the side of a mountain… This sort of suicide/murder has only happened 3-4 times in the last THREE DECADES.
‘Talking heads” have been asking why medical professionals can’t determine who is suicidal and when they are going to – or could – act on their suicidal thoughts.
In this same TWO WEEK period
abt 1500 people have committed suicide .. including abt 300 veterans !
abt 600 people have died from a drug overdose … no data kept on whether these deaths are suicide or accidental
abt 600 people have died from hospital acquired MRSA.. because people staff don’t adequately wash this hands
abt 20,000 people have “caught” C-diff from being in nursing home & hospitals with abt 1100 have died
abt 20,000 people have died from tobacco use/abuse
abt 3200 people have died from alcohol use/abuse
abt 1200 people have died in auto accidents
Here is a CDC website that tracks deaths YTD.. http://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.php and according to this website, ONE MORE PERSON has died from falling out of bed.. than killed in that airplane..
Haven’t seen any WALL TO WALL coverage of any/all of these deaths ?
Then there is this past week – AND COUNTING the bureaucrats in Indianapolis passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) http://www.indianasenaterepublicans.com/blog/2015/03/26/general/protecting-religious-freedom/
I am not a legal scholar.. my legal “skill set” is pretty much limited to knowing that if you speed you may get a ticket, if you run a stop sign.. you may get a ticket.. if you spit in a cop’s face.. you will probably get your ass kicked… that being said…
All of a sudden this law stirs up a whole bunch of crap about the 13 million people belonging to and/or aligned with the LGTB portion of our population.
One poor pizza shop owner in a small town near South Bend IN http://www.inquisitr.com/1973227/walkerton-indiana-memories-pizza-becomes-first-indiana-business-to-openly-refuse-business-to-gay-weddings/
was interviewed by a local news reporter and she indicated that because of her religious views.. that she had no problem serving gays, but would have a problem if asked to cater a gay wedding… what do you think that number of gay weddings have a pizza place cater a wedding ? She has since had to close the business and she had gotten death threats and threats of fire bombing her small pizza place. Someone started a www.gofundme.com account to help raise $25 K to help this small pizza shop owner http://www.gofundme.com/MemoriesPizza
as of this writing.. it has raised $750 K + in support of this small pizza place.
I wonder what would have been our society’s reaction.. if a news reporter had interviewed a pharmacist about refusing to fill a legit controlled med for a pt and the pharmacist’s personal beliefs is that anyone taking controlled meds were addicts and being a addict was “immoral” and that they have a religious objection to filling ANY CONTROLLED RX for anyone? Would the needle on the “discrimination meter” even move – a little ?
Then there are commercials from the ASPCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO9d2PpP7tQ about abused, neglected animals. Maybe we need to put Sarah McLachlan‘s song behind all the clips from Matt Grant’s recent 30 minute expose about pts being denied their needed/prescribed medications…maybe that could elicit some sympathy of those pts being abused and neglected ?
From my perspective, the one issue that allows those in the chronic pain community of est 106 million people as opposed to those in the LGTB community est 13 million and African/American community est 39 million..to be shoved aside and abused, neglected and marginalized …is that those in the chronic pain community are not VISIBLE and VOCAL, unlike other minority groups who are visible and “make noise”.
Indiana passes this law ( Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) ) and heads of international corporations ( Walmart, Starbucks, Apple and others ) come out of the woodwork.. as if the LGTB community is the only ones that COULD BE discriminated against by this law…
President Obama and AG Holder have injected themselves into some very local issues almost entirely on issues involving a single incident with a single person of color. IMO, they embolden the actions and rhetoric of people like Al Sharpton, who typically does more to stir up and amplify the problem(s)… rather than attempting to resolve the problem/issues… they do just the opposite.
Is those in the chronic pain community going to let the expose by Matt Grant
http://www.wesh.com/health/state-of-pain-special-part-1/32152120
http://www.wesh.com/health/state-of-pain-special-part-2/32151834
http://www.wesh.com/health/state-of-pain-special-part-3/32152080
be the FIRST STEP to the end of abuse, neglect and discrimination against those in the chronic pain community.. or just another single expose that will soon be forgotten because those in the chronic pain community YAWNED … and expecting this expose to ignite a larger conversation and not understand that unless they pick up the torch, this expose becomes nothing more than a flash in the pan.
Filed under: General Problems
The Indiana story is being fueled by the mentality the same people who really believe that giving terrorists jobs will solve the problem. Kumbaya!
BRAVO Re Ole RPh comments! You are SO right… We need demonstrations, exposes and so on for our RIGHT to get properly prescribed. Pain medications for chronic pain patients! I didn’t understand why there weren’t more patients yelling and screaming re being denied pain meds but in reality (from my own experiences) being in constant pain is tough and wears one down emotionally resulting in feelings of hopelessness, despair and depression. Many chronic pain patients are physically UNABLE to do much of anything but lie in bed if they do not have their pain meds but those that ARE able to scream and yell DAMN WELL NEED TO START! NOW! This tragic situation has to be corrected and AT ONCE! I wonder how our Attorney General, Ms. Bondi, DEA agents and pharmacists would feel if they had loved ones suffering from chronic pain but were unable to get pain medication? But we KNOW that would never happen, they’d get THEIR meds immediately. The injustice of It all makes my blood boil and if There were an organized demonstration I would crawl to it if necessary in order to be HEARD rather than TOTALLY disregarded.
In other words, it is easy to read about civil rights, but it is hard to read about intractable pain. Yet, there, by God, SHOULD be mass demonstrations performed by intractable pain sufferers!!! There SHOULD be more news exposes about the legitimate people who can’t get their legitimately prescribed narcotics and then have to face ruined lives! There SHOULD be major rebuffs against the drug witch hunters!
Valid point that you make about pain victims not being publicized neary as much as homosexuals. Why is this so? It is because the media can’t sell their wares on a pain story. It’s not the “happy” or “sexy” kind of plight that readers might be interested in. You can’t sing “We Shall Overcome” in the same key with a pain story that you can sing it with an oppressed gay-lesbian story. Perhaps the fault lies not with the media but the media’s audience, which does not demand to read about a widespread, difficult problem that is hard to read about, instead of a problem you can be refreshingly quixotic about.
Agree,Steve
Out loud and proud!
where are you getting the 106million statistic of chronic pain patients? That would be 1/3 people in the united states.
This is a figure that is normally quoted… there are many disease states that chronic pain is part of the disease.. baby boomers make up abt 25% of the population and the youngest is now 51… but chronic pain knows no age
Nice blog.
The two pain bills are wordy, and empower pharmacists to further act as providers to deny.
There will be no loud voices if the dramas in pain groups keep occurring. I am fearful of joining in, and being the vocal level I am. Been watching, and ones are nice to most as very mean and rude to others. Funny how ones do not want to be discriminate, as they judge ones going through horrors. Seems very highschool.
Dramamine.
I doubt the two bills are going to be that helpful. It is to appease, divide pain patients of have and have nots; as it is very wordy, allowing more loose interpretation, even further calling the pharmacists
Excellent post, Pharmacist Steve! Bravo! It is definitely time to keep the pressure on those who are responsible for the problems legit. patients are having obtaining their necessary medications. We have two bills now already, that I’m aware of, that are aimed directly at correcting this debacle. Shame on those who continue to judge the innocent and chronically ill. It is always easiest to bully those who are the weakest, those who can barely stand up, let alone fight for their lawful rights to beneficial medical care. Thank you for posting this.
Great comment by ihmeow2meow! So right. We must keep the pressure on re pain med issues. I’m one of the “can’t stand up” disabled people u referred to and its a matter of having “quality of life” Without pain meds I have none. I pray this situation is corrected quickly but I fear that’s not going to be the case. If there’s ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO HELP PUSH THESE BILLS THRU FASTER PLEASE ADVISE. I am willing to do whatever it takes.
The news has a peculiar way of determining what is and what is not important. As you noted, in the 2 week period after 149 people were killed in the plane crash, there were also 300 veterans that committed suicide. But, you did not hear anything about it. There may be 100’s of people killed in some African country, but the news will report the latest happenings of Miley Cyrus. The news media’s doesn’t just report the news they determine what is news. This is something very crucial! Our politicians are elected without us knowing how they stand on important issues. The news media is too busy trying to create some drama.
So true! We MUST keep this rx issue alive and KEEP pushing for our right of getting our pain med rxs filled and having some “quality of life”. This situation has infuriated me beyond belief and i am willing to do whatever is necessary to put an end to such a disgraceful, insensitive,uncaring and indifferent mentality re pain pts and meds. THIS HAS TO STOP!!! Thank God for voices like Stevethepharmacist for he truly cares about humans suffering needlessly. This IS America, is it not?
Steve, All I can tell you is I have been discriminated against for being a Lesbian EVEN longer than I have been for being in PAIN. Not sure which form of degradation is preferable, but, I don’t wish either on YOU or anyone else.
I can only hope it doesn’t take NEARLY as long to get reform for my pain issues. In short, it’s important to note, neither group asked for their plight. Those doubly blessed, like me, know how much fun the LGBT battle has been.
Kimmee, my posts below, about Indiana, etc., do not mean that I am underestimating anti-gay/lesbian discrimination. Far from it. I attended my cousin’s wedding in Alabama many years ago, and was sad that it didn’t have the sanction of law in the state in which it was performed. Happily, Alabama is in the process of rectifying that problem. And, I predict that the Supreme Court will overturn all prohibitions against same sex marriage soon. It’s just that the Indiana law is following a federal law that has been on the books for 20 years protecting people from infringement of their religious freedom. With regard to public accommodations, I have no solution to that. It represents positions that are in collision. One party wants the RIGHT a gay/lesbian cake, the other holds beliefs that they can’t bake one. Should civil rights laws trump religious freedom, or vice versa?