British Columbia doctors treating patients with chronic pain will be required to prescribe opioids without limiting dosage or refusing to see patients who are on the medication that has come to be associated with illicit overdose deaths.
In revising an existing standard of practice, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. provided more clarity to doctors about their obligation to treat patients through proper assessments and documented discussions about dosage, tapering and stopping the drugs if necessary, college registrar Heidi Oetter said.
The new requirements, yet to be introduced to physicians, update a June 2016 standard that replaced national guidelines offering only recommendations and meant B.C. physicians became the first in Canada to face mandatory regulations involving prescription opioids.
The original standard was set after B.C. declared a public health emergency in April 2016 over of a spike in overdose deaths, mostly involving the powerful painkiller fentanyl being cut into street drugs. The province still has the highest number of overdose fatalities in Canada, with 1,448 deaths recorded last year.
Oetter said the standard was revised after widespread consultation of doctors in the province and patient advocacy groups that had complained people were being denied care or abandoned because they were on opioids.
