‘What are we supposed to do?’ opioid patients ask after feds shut down doctor
Senator Chas Schumer and 27 from the House of Representatives from New York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Representatives_from_New_York are up for reelection this Nov. These are the people who fund and oversee the DEA… The BUCK STOPS WITH THEM… Don’t send them a letter, fax, email… send YOUR VOTE to their OPPONENT this fall.. that is the ONLY MESSAGE they understand ! It WASN’T YOU THIS TIME… BUT.. it could be the next time..
The temporary closing of Dr. Eugene J. Gosy’s Amherst medical office after his criminal indictment last week – cutting off hundreds, if not thousands, of his panic-stricken patients from their opioid medications – has created a public health crisis in Erie County.
Patients depending on the pain specialist for relief from their chronic painful conditions are demanding help.
“These people are desperate. They’re really suffering. They’re desperate, and they’re scared,” said Dr. Gale R. Burstein, health commissioner for the county. “At this point, we’re at a public health crisis.”
Her department has fielded hundreds of calls in recent days.
But county government’s limited capacity to help the patients has helped drive their desperation to new heights.
“What are we supposed to do?” patients of Dr. Gosy yelled during a county-sponsored town hall-style meeting Wednesday night at Kenmore West High School in the Town of Tonawanda.
“Basically, we don’t have the providers in our community to manage this,” Burstein said Thursday. “There’s really only so much we can do.”
The county Health Department has reached out to local insurance providers to try and connect patients with pain specialists in the region who can prescribe the medication they need. But few local providers are taking new patients.
The county is also working with the New York State Department of Health, which is aware of the nature of the problem and has worked to identify pain-management clinics across the state that can assist patients. The state Health Department is also expected to provide educational and technical assistance next week to primary care physicians in Erie County to help them manage patients with chronic pain until the patients can find new pain specialists.
But patients are also turning to the county to try to get immediate help.
Wednesday night’s public meeting was meant to educate community members on the overdose epidemic. But addiction specialists and overdose victim advocates soon found themselves answering patients on the flip side – those taking their medication as prescribed but now facing the return of serious pain symptoms.
County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz found himself surrounded by patients and office workers from Gosy’s office at Wednesday’s meeting. One patient asked him why he can’t order doctors in Erie County to take Gosy’s patients.
“I don’t have that power,” Poloncarz said. “I don’t know that anyone has that power.”
They also asked why he can’t have county Health Department physicians care for these patients.
The Health Department, he replied, employs only two doctors: Burstein and the medical examiner.
Avi Israel, a community advocate on the opioid overdose crisis, said he abruptly ended the official part of the forum after getting screamed and yelled at by people in the audience.
One even accused him of being of being responsible for the dire situation in which Gosy’s patients now find themselves.
Israel’s son, Michael, 20, became addicted when doctors started prescribing opioid painkillers in treating him for Crohn’s disease. He took his own life in 2011.
“If you had control of your son, we wouldn’t be in this place right now,” a patient at Wednesday’s meeting told him, Israel said.
Meanwhile, Burstein’s office has been inundated with angry mail. Messages filled with outrage have been posted on the Health Department’s Facebook page. Some of them accused county leaders of shutting down Gosy’s practice, but it was the doctor who chose, after he was indicted April 26, to temporarily close his office until May 16. The federal investigation and indictment had nothing to do with any Erie County department, officials said.
“Everybody needs a scapegoat,” Burstein said.
Gosy is charged with authorizing more than 300,000 illegal prescriptions for controlled substances over four years – more than some hospitals. Federal prosecutors allege that Gosy, 55, a Clarence resident, set up a prescription-renewal process that was “batch-signing” 300 illegal renewals each day. The doctor pleaded not guilty and was released on bail.
Gosy, one of the state’s busiest pain-management doctors, surrendered his license to prescribe controlled substances while keeping his license to practice medicine.
Joel L. Daniels, one of Gosy’s lawyers, has said his client has between 8,000 and 10,000 active patients. Burstein, Poloncarz and Israel said that they have sympathy for those now suffering and wish that more options were available to them.
Israel stood with the county executive and others for nearly half an hour after the public meeting Wednesday night to talk with patients and staff members from Gosy’s office. Gosy’s staff told him that they don’t have the ability to release patients’ records to other doctors who are willing to treat them.
Although Gosy’s practice includes another physician and physicians assistants who could help provide continuing care to Gosy’s patients, they have not done so, Israel said.
“There’s a game being played here, and the question is, why did Dr. Gosy close his office?” Israel asked. “And what will happen when it reopens?”
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Pain clinics are slowly morphing into addiction clinics, so these patients shouldn’t expect to have their pain treated in the future, no matter how loud they yell. (Especially in New York, home of Kolodny and PFROP.) Maybe if some of the patients were famous or rich, there might be a chance to be heard, but I kinda doubt it.
These patients will be offered methadone or bupe, which have helped some pain patients. If you choose to take any of these medications, please educate yourself before doing so. Methadone is proving to be deadly all over this country, mostly because it doesn’t work that well and patients take too much of it.
Pain patients in New York have few options left, especially since there is no medical cannabis program in that state. I know pain patients from that area who are turning to Kratom, but I’ve never tried it, so I can’t recommend it.
More and more states are making Kratom illegal. It was made illegal in my state before it even got here. Have read where some states are saying it is ‘addictive as heroin’ and are planning to ban it.
boilerrph, my state (Arkansas) banned Kratom as of Feb. of this year. They snuck it in on a bill that passed back in Oct. of last year. The people in those in the areas where Kratom grows naturally (southeast Asia, I think?) have been chewing the leaves for hundreds (probably thousands) of years with no problem. It’s as safe as mmj, though it can create a very mild physical dependence where the “withdrawal” is compared to withdrawal from caffeine. (I had to laugh when I heard others saying that Kratom was as “bad as heroin.”) I’ve never tried it, but next time I go to Missouri (where it’s legal), I will be stocking up on it. (I live about 20 miles from MO/AR state line and travel to Branson or Springfield a couple of times a month where I also buy my cigarettes because Arkansas shot themselves in the foot when they stuck a heavy tax on tobacco products). I know there are some who says it helps them. Unfortunately, it does not work for everyone. (I’ve heard it helps those going into withdrawal due to getting cut cold-turkey with no warning from their doctors). What on earth do these idiots think we’re supposed to do??? We can hardly access the legal, safe, approved prescription medication that helps lessen our pain enough so that we can be functional and have some quality of life as it is. Then our “brilliant” legislators decide to ban safe, natural methods like Kratom and marijuana.
Yes. Vote the bums out. And in the meantime every town hall meeting or other meeting that is meant to discuss addiction should be attended by as many chronic pain patients as possible.
These folks need to be reminded that opiates are a legitimate medication with people who legitimately need it in order to function to some extent. Some cannot even shower or prepare a light meal unless they have this medication.
“Israel’s son, Michael, 20, became addicted when doctors started prescribing opioid painkillers in treating him for Crohn’s disease. He took his own life in 2011.”
I have Crohn’s Disease and I know full well the chronic and acute pain this INCURABLE and PROGRESSIVE disease causes! I recently lost my access to opiates for my chronic pain when the largest Tennessee STATE LICENSED PAIN MANAGEMENT CLINIC (yes, I had surprise as well as monthly pill/patch counts and urine tests) closed down in April 2016. I am soon to go into full-blown withdrawals when my meds run out.
Maybe Israel’s son killed himself because of the disease and that his pain was UNDERTREATED, not because he became “addicted” to opiates!
Too bad we can’t read people’s minds just before they die but I agree with you. The sheer agony of a disease like yours and many others is enough to drive a person to take their life if their pain is not brought down to a manageable level.
I wish there was an app that allowed our doctor to feel exactly the pain we feel when we go for an office visit. Then we would see unprecedented empathy and more than adequate pain care.
Would like to know more about what TN pain mgmt clinic and how they went about it. Have to wonder how many towns, cities and states will have bunches of responsible chronic pain patients yelling the same question – what are we supposed to do…. And recovery centers are probably drooling in anticipation, hoping to have 100s begging for help! Should be against the law to let people suffer and not only that, but put people’s lives in danger by not properly weaning them down. State licensed clinics – why would they stop prescribing? I’ll bet they will be offering injections left and right and people will wait months for those, and so many won’t get relief. What about people who are already sick and weak?? They’re going to just let them run out??? Why should anyone trust any doctors from those practices for anything? If they are saying prescribing meds aren’t safe after years of prescribing are we supposed to trust them that invasive procedures are safe? Or going to work, ESI not FDA approved, but I bet they have those syringes locked and loaded. It’s all about money!!
Livin N Pain, this is probably the TN clinic she’s talking about. It’s absolutely outrageous that a PAIN management clinic would even consider the thought of adopting a “zero opioid prescribing policy.” I mean, seriously?
http://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2016/4/27/tennessee-pain-clinics-to-stop-using-opioids
Livin N Pain . . . Yes, it is the clinic that Tracey posted the link to. It is Tennova (old St. Mary’s) that just out of the blue decided to quit prescribing opiates without continuation of care. They gave us a few options, one of which was “weaning” us off our meds. For me that consisted of cutting my meds in half and telling me to wean myself off! Their “intent” was that we [patients] would get appointments with other pain clinics before we ran out of our meds. That was a joke! Most were months out. And yes, they are still open for injections and all other modalities to reduce our suffering . . . another joke. The kicker is that they were already licensed, owned by doctors, setup for pill/patch counts at every appointment & surprise counts along the way, and UA’s, They didn’t have to do anything to upgrade to the new guidelines. They had been reducing dosages for a little over a year. First, they would no longer prescribe oxycodone – they said DEA wanted them off the street and this was going to stop diversion. Don’t know about the other patients but I never diverted any of my meds. I NEED THEM! So I could drop to hydro 10’s (which would be half my normal dose) or switch to Morphine 30’s. So I switched to Morphine. Second, they decided that anyone on over 200 MEDD’s had to be reduced to 200. That included my 30mg Morphine being changed to Hydro 10’s and my patches reduced. The drop went really quick and I had a very difficult time. Then a few short months later the new limit was 120 MEDD’s. So that drop took about 2 months. And then in April, I walked in and they said “Too bad, so sad. We won’t write scrips anymore.” They said that there business and personal licenses were being threatened by the DEA and pressured by the CDC and DHS (Dept. of Human Services.) Of course, all three of those alphabet soups deny that is their intended outcome. This is what I think and it is only my opinion: Dr. Andrew Kolodny – CEO of Phoenix House, Inc. (a nationwide chain of rehab centers), lead Doctor on PROP (Physicians for Responsible Opiod Prescribing) which is THE driving force in this new opiodphobia here in the USA, AND in league with RB Pharmaceuticals which produces & has patent on the drug Suboxone (this is the “new” drug that cleans up street junkies, it basically attaches itself to the pain receptors and doesn’t allow illegal or legal opiods to attach, you just piss them out. So basically it keeps you out of w/d’s and you can’t get high. Maybe a miracle drug for strebet/rec users but really does no good for chronic pain patients.) BUT here is the clincher, if Dr. Kolodney keeps pushing all legit chronic pain patients off their meds, what are they going to do? Maybe try Suboxone? It won’t help with the pain but it will keep you out of w/d’s. I think Kolodney, Phoenix House & RB Pharm want all opiate users, legal and illegal to be lumped into one group that “needs” rehab and BOOM! Bring on the Phoenix House and the Suboxone! Like I said, just my opinion but I think he has a major conflict of interest. His associations are all facts, its his intent that is up for interpretation. As lead doctor on PROP, he is pushing HARD that no one should be using opiates long-term. The only patients they exempt is terminally ill cancer patients. Even though people die from other diseases besides cancer, sheesh!
Iservies, I immediately thought the same thing. More than likely, Israel’s son committed suicide due to the intense pain associated with Crohn’s Disease. I am so sorry for what you’re going through. I was literally outraged when I learned about the pain management clinic in TN adopting a “no opioid prescribing policy.” These cruel and heartless doctors who run this clinic in TN should have their damn licenses yanked. It’s just disgusting as to what is happening around the country.