Pharmaceutical drug overdoses 'common'
June 25, 2007 - 11:44AM
Melbourne paramedics attend an average of 19 overdoses a day involving pharmaceutical drugs, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
Most of the patients are women aged between 18 and 40 who overdose in the home, according to the Metropolitan Ambulance Service (MAS).
Paramedic Alan Eade made the submission at the first public hearing of a parliamentary inquiry into the misuse and abuse of Benzodiazepine and other pharmaceutical drugs.
He said most overdoses occurred from mid-afternoon to midnight late in the working week, peaking on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.
An "incredibly high" proportion of patients required hospitalisation because there was largely no antidote for pharmaceutical overdoses, which impacted on resources.
"These are pharmaceutical medicines that were designed to treat specific clinical problems, so in misuse it's an exaggerated effect of the intent of the agent," Mr Eade told the inquiry.
"So if the drug was supposed to calm you down and make you sleepy then it will very well do that, especially if you take too many, to the point where you don't wake up in the morning sometimes."
Mr Eade said more education was needed to teach the public that prescription drugs were potentially dangerous when misused.
The hearing heard Benzodiazepines, a class of minor tranquilliser, were a factor in about seven per cent of Victorian road deaths and that figure was growing.
