• DPMC Moderators: thegreenhand | tryptakid
  • Drug Policy & Media Coverage Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Drug Busts Megathread Video Megathread

A doctor prescribed so many painkillers, she’s been charged with murder

slimvictor

slimvictor

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Dec 29, 2008
Messages
6,483
On Nov. 21, 2012, Sheila Bartels walked out of the Sunshine Medical Center in Oklahoma with a prescription for a "horrifyingly excessive" cocktail of drugs capable of killing her several times over.

A short time later, she was at a pharmacy, receiving what drug addicts call “the holy trinity” of prescription drugs: the powerful painkiller Hydrocodone, the anti-anxiety medication Xanax and a muscle relaxant known as Soma.

In total, pharmacists handed her 510 pills that day — all legal, because she had a prescription with the signature of her doctor, Regan Ganoung Nichols, scrawled at the bottom, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Bartels's lifeless body was found later that day, court documents say. A medical examiner concluded that she died of multiple drug toxicity, another victim of the America's opioid epidemic.

But investigators say the 55-year-old Bartels was also a victim of Nichols, a pain management doctor who investigators concluded “either didn't know or didn't care what she was doing.”

Nichols is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Bartels and four other patients, some of whom died just days after receiving large prescriptions from the doctor. She was arrested Friday and released from Oklahoma County Jail on $50,000 bail.

cont at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ients-authorities-say/?utm_term=.9636f4da314a
 
It's sick these doctor's get patients hooked on these drugs just so they can bill your insurance month after month because they don't give you refills.
 
^^ This is a response to this comment.

It's interesting that all these overdoses occurred within days of filling their prescriptions. I wonder if they were taking more pills than they should have. 8)

Let's blame the doctor and the pharmaceutical companies for everything, shall we?

I mean people who have a disease called addiction are the same as me having bone cancer and needing invasive surgery cutting to the center of a bone inside a joint to cut it out. So if they can't get their medicine, why should I? We're all in pain after all- hey mine was on the inside too!

It's because of dumbasses like this that I had to go in person in a wheelchair with a great friend(s) to drive me to pick up prescriptions every two weeks, get the same talk and sign a paper saying I understood the combination of meds could kill me. Oh and the urine tests to make sure I wasn't dealing to the discerning people who buy pills from people with a prescription. Interesting logistics.

I'll bet some of you opiate/opioid addicts can relate, like when you are dopesick. Or the frustration when you're dealer keeps you waiting and it's super hot and you really need it. Or something.

Blast those pain doctors and pharmaceutical companies!

Things have improved and I'm walking, off 2/3 meds and a month away from #3. No relapses. And I got to experience mandatory addiction counseling too, which is permanently attached to my medical file, because after all addicts come from all walks of life (no pun intended). I couldn't even get adequate pain treatment except at a cancer center where I stayed for a week, because I was up against a lot of people using medication I needed recreationally for their stigmatized, uncontrollable disease.

People who need pain medication for things like pancreatitis or post-op shouldn't be denied pain medication. It's gone too far and this needs to be part of the problem.

tl;dr Hey can I be a casualty of the opiate/opioid epidemic too?
Oh and it's all Big Pharma and doctors' faults. Obviously.
 
Last edited:
. . . read the other comment, took back rant.
 
Last edited:
cduggles said:
^^ This is a response to this comment.

It's interesting that all these overdoses occurred within days of filling their prescriptions. I wonder if they were taking more pills than they should have. 8)

Let's blame the doctor and the pharmaceutical companies for everything, shall we?

I mean people who have a disease called addiction are the same as me having bone cancer and needing invasive surgery cutting to the center of a bone inside a joint to cut it out. So if they can't get their medicine, why should I? We're all in pain after all- hey mine was on the inside too!

It's because of dumbasses like this that I had to go in person in a wheelchair with a great friend(s) to drive me to pick up prescriptions every two weeks, get the same talk and sign a paper saying I understood the combination of meds could kill me. Oh and the urine tests to make sure I wasn't dealing to the discerning people who buy pills from people with a prescription. Interesting logistics.

I'll bet some of you opiate/opioid addicts can relate, like when you are dopesick. Or the frustration when you're dealer keeps you waiting and it's super hot and you really need it. Or something.

Blast those pain doctors and pharmaceutical companies!

Things have improved and I'm walking, off 2/3 meds and a month away from #3. No relapses. And I got to experience mandatory addiction counseling too, which is permanently attached to my medical file, because after all addicts come from all walks of life (no pun intended). I couldn't even get adequate pain treatment except at a cancer center where I stayed for a week, because I was up against a lot of people using medication I needed recreationally for their stigmatized, uncontrollable disease.

People who need pain medication for things like pancreatitis or post-op shouldn't be denied pain medication. It's gone too far and this needs to be part of the problem.

tl;dr Hey can I be a casualty of the opiate/opioid epidemic too?
Oh and it's all Big Pharma and doctors' faults. Obviously.
Click to expand...

Nice post.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Blame the regulators and insurance for some of that.

So CII means no refills in california. Period. And they're all CII, your oxy's and vicodins, etc.

That means you need a Dr. visit to get a new script--they don't do it over the phone.

Well, the system can't handle that. So what do Docs do? Give a one-time script that covers a full six months.

That can mean filling over a thousand pills per script.
Source: Pharmacist and Pharmacy Tech Instructor Rant on the subject

Who to blame? California legislators, pharmacists who didn't have the money to make a PAC to fight the reschedule I guess . . .
Oh yeah, and the Morality Warriors, quick to climb the pedestal (I have a thing with them)

EDIT: but before the buts, yeah, soma and xanax are NOT CII in California. But I stand by my rant.
 
^^Well I'm not in California, but otherwise there is plenty of blame to go around in my situation.
Tbc, I was responding to the comment.
 
TBH, I think that must have been remedied somehow here (I don't have any scheduled scripts--my scheduled drugs are OTC, or through the hole-in-the-screen window). I heard that pharmacist rant at least two years ago now, and I would think just security for granny picking up and going out to her car with a possible 1500 Norcos in her bag, just isn't a long-term solution. (Pharmacist had done the math, and 1500 is not even close to an exaggeration).

But there's still no refills, or reschedule, which suggests doctors found a work-around. But I have no idea.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top