Real outcomes for misuse
April 10, 2014
The Australian Medical
Association (AMA) Victorian branch
has called for tangible outcomes
from the Victorian Pharmaceutical
Misuse Summit.
Convened by the Department
of Health, the summit was held
yesterday to share evidence and
identify solutions to pharmaceutical
drug misuse, with advisory groups
including the Pharmacy Guild of
Victoria and the Pharmaceutical
Society of Australia (PSA).
AMA Victoria president Dr
Stephen Parnis said more Victorians
died from prescription overdoses
each year than the state’s road toll.
This followed the Victorian
Coroners Court prevention unit’s
release about overdose deaths in
September 2013, which showed
that in 2012, 304 people died
from pharmaceutical overdoses,
compared with 131 due to illegal
drugs and a road toll of 282, and in
the six months to June 2013, 145
people died from pharmaceutical
overdoses, compared with 77 from
illegal drugs.
Parnis said the summit would
provide an opportunity to discuss
ways that the government,
supported by the community, could
reduce the forgery, dependency,
misuse, abuse and “doctor
shopping” which lead to a high rate
of pharmaceutical-related fatalities.
AMA Victoria said its budget
submission recommended
that $55m in funding be given
to prioritising the harms of
pharmaceutical misuse and to
introduce a real-time prescription
monitoring system, such as that
used in Tasmania (PD 20 Mar).
PSA Victoria director Bill Suen said
the summit had gone well and that
there were many useful ideas that
surfaced.
Key among these was the need
for medical history to be shared
among health professionals
and carers; the importance of
adequate communication among
all sectors, from hospitals to GPs
to pharmacists; the importance
of a real time monitoring system;
the recognition that misuse was
a complex disease, which was
an international issue and not a
social problem; and the desire for
participants to work together to
find solutions.
However a lot of support at
different levels of government and
across different disciplines was
needed for this, Suen said.
Solutions would be collated and
presented to participants, he said.
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