NEWS: Daily Telegraph - 'One in three young doctors self-prescribe addictive drugs'

Nurses could replace stressed-out doctors
October 22, 2008 01:02am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

NURSES could soon be trained as junior doctors, prescribing drugs, performing minor day surgery and colonoscopies to cope with a national shortage of medical professionals.

A report to be released today urges both state and federal governments to follow the UK and US, who have already begun retraining their nurses.

They have performed minor surgeries and ordered CAT scans and X-rays.

It comes after a survey of junior doctors found they are stressed, working up to 100 hours a week.

One in three self-prescribe medications including potentially addictive drugs.

The report by health workforce management consultants Kronos suggests nurses could help ease some of the strain.

It warns there will be a shortage of 40,000 nurses in just two years.

The report predicts 90,000 nurses will retire by 2020, while more will leave due to dissatisfaction with their careers.

Kronos chief Sharon Lowry said incentives were needed to retain nurses.

But doctors yesterday attacked the idea of nurses taking over their duties.

"If someone wants to be a doctor they need to be medically trained, it takes years of training to be a good doctor," NSW AMA vice president Dr Michael Steiner said.

A drug lobby group yesterday called for doctors to undergo drug testing before they are allowed to operate on patients or undertake other tasks which could endanger patients lives.

"Emergency departments are already stretched to breaking point," Alcohol and Other Drugs Council chief David Templeman said. "You don't need other factors or risk involved that could have devastating consequences."

And the Australian Nursing Federation blamed a doctor turf war for the stress that junior doctors were under.

ANF secretary Ged Kearney said nurse practitioners could take a huge load off junior doctors if they were allowed to order blood tests, X-rays, fluid for drips and antibiotics. Some public hospitals were already employing nurses to do this.

"The Australian Medical Association is always throwing out these horror stories but they are never putting up solutions," Ms Kearney said.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon has already foreshadowed shifting some medical tasks from doctors to nurses in general practice.

A survey of junior doctors has found 38 per cent self-prescribed medications including one in 10 who prescribed their own anti-depressants. Seven per cent self-prescribed sleeping pills such as benzodiazepines which can be addictive.

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Nurse stole drugs to support habit
Steve Butcher
October 22, 2008

A REGISTERED nurse under suspension infiltrated some of Melbourne's leading public and private hospitals to remove intravenous pain-relief drugs from patients - including a dying woman - to support her heroin addiction.

The husband of the dying patient said it was "painful" to think of his wife on her death bed, fragile and vulnerable, subjected to "such an uncaring and despicable act".

Clive Saultry wrote in a victim impact statement that the harm Stephanie Maher had inflicted on his family had added to their distress.

Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday heard that Maher also removed drugs from a patient recovering at The Alfred hospital from a kidney transplant and a man who had undergone major abdominal surgery.

Prosecutor Kim Swadesir said that on September 24 last year, Maher, 26, after resigning from The Alfred, re-entered dressed in nurse's scrubs and wearing an identity lanyard.

Ms Swadesir said Maher stole drugs, including morphine sulphate, from a nurse, claiming they were for a patient.

Ms Swadesir said the next day, Maher re-entered numerous wards looking for drugs, but the hospital's protocols thwarted her until she "convinced a nurse to breach" procedures by claiming the drugs, including morphine, were needed urgently for a patient.

After a search of her home, which recovered an empty vial, and being interviewed over the allegations of theft without being charged, Maher on March 13 this year entered a private room at Cabrini Hospital in Prahran.

Ms Swadesir said she engaged Glenda Saultry, a terminally ill patient, in conversation and, after checking her medical chart, removed her infusion pump, which was connected to her by an extension line, lock and a needle in her arm.

Maher unscrewed the lock and left the hospital with the entire pump and contents that contained an estimated four milligrams of pain relief medication.

Ms Saultry died a week later, and although the removal of the medication "did not appear to have a detrimental effect" on her treatment, it could have caused an increase in pain, Ms Swadesir said.

Later that same day, Maher, posing as a student nurse, entered Cabrini Hospital in Malvern where she helped bathe a patient recovering from major abdominal surgery.

Ms Swadesir said that Maher removed the line connected to the man's analgesic pump, which delivered morphine, and a pain relief line to remove a syringe of morphine.

Maher yesterday pleaded guilty to 12 charges of aggravated burglary, burglary, theft and unlawful assault.

Defence lawyer Malcolm Thomas said Maher was exposed to opiates at a young age, underwent rapid detoxification in 2007 and participated in a nurses' health program, but moved on to heroin before more recent rehabilitation efforts.

Her mother said in evidence that Maher was "broken-hearted" and appalled with what she had done.

Magistrate Susan Wakeling, who said the offending struck at the confidence of those "with a right to privacy and a right to refuge", accepted Maher was remorseful with real prospects for rehabilitation.

She will be assessed as suitable for a sentence that will not involve jail time.

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One of my mates is doing medicine and he was telling me some statistic about how many doctors/med students become alcohol and drug dependent. It was staggering, something like 60 or 80% can't remember, but more that were than weren't.

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Christ! said:

I always thought it was illegal for doctors to self prescribe. Or is that only with the controlled prescription drugs?

The nurse that stole the pain meds. from dieing patients makes me sick. I know how horrible opiate addiction can be but that's one thing I'd never do. Hopefully they realized the pumps had been removed and quickly replaced them...

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Mr Blonde said:

But you know, 50% of statistics are made up on the spot.

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