Prescriptions under special surveillance

Indeed, on the issue of opioid drugs, we are moving between two extremes: a large group of patients who require the administration of strong painkillers, primarily in terminal states of cancer, have problems obtaining and filling prescriptions; on the other hand, there are (incidentally, fortunately) cases where medical PWZs are used to produce prescriptions for the use of criminal activity. In fact, Polish doctors are unlikely to need to be educated about the necessary caution when prescribing opioids, and this is probably the main shield that protects us from repeating mistakes from overseas.

Last week, when the Minister of Health announced the issuance of an order under which the e-Health Center will send a daily report to the Health Ministry on the prescribing of strong opioids (the report will stop at the data of doctors, issuing prescriptions), the media reported extensively on a doctor (detained in March) who for a long time issued prescriptions - about eight hundred in all - for opioid drugs, including fentanyl, in the names of unsuspecting patients. The matter came to light when the hospital where she was employed received information from a relative of one of the patients whose CIP included just such drugs, which he had never used. An inspection confirmed the irregularities, the hospital notified law enforcement authorities, the doctor faces eight years in prison, and her accomplice, the man to whom she sold the prescriptions, was also arrested (in May).

The man filled prescriptions for 1.6 thousand packages. - The total value of these reimbursed pharmaceuticals was estimated at about 450 thousand zlotys, the police announced. There is no information on how long the whole procedure lasted. However, one can assume that it was long enough to raise questions about the lack of response from the National Health Fund. It's hard not to recall the "milk scandal" and the punishment of doctors for so-called undue reimbursement because they prescribed milk replacer for infants to children several weeks or months older. After years of struggle, a handful of doctors have the chance to have their penalties remitted, perhaps a larger number, who had previously given up the fight and surrendered to punishment, will decide to seek justice in the courts.

The mass prescribing of such drugs is itself a red flag, if reimbursement is added - the alarms not only in CeZ, but also in the payer's control division should sound loud enough. Otherwise, we will have a paradoxical situation in which the institutions of the state absolve themselves of omissions and slothfulness, while at the same time formulating expectations and, if they are not met, also accusations against the professional responsibility division of the medical self-government in connection with the pace, too slow, at which the medical community eliminates the so-called black sheep. It is hard not to notice that when it comes to purely criminal activity, the responsibility lies primarily with the institutions of the state, which enact the law and have the duty to effectively enforce it.