We recently received an email in our inboxes telling us that there is an acute shortage of opiates in the country these days. The company that was producing these opiates has been shut down because it failed to meet the criteria set by FDA. The result is that drugs like, Oxycodone, Percocet, Vicodin will no longer be available. Even when these drugs become available they will be rationed and the supply will be short by many fold.
This news is a huge shock to the system. Our patient population is squarely dependent and at times addicted to opaites and narcotics at every level. If there are no narcotics available for them to use they are going to complain and all hell is going to break lose. As soon as people start running out of their supplies they will start calling the hospital and the clinics for answers and in the hope that the doctors will provide them with narcotics, as they had been doing ever so diligently, without fault for so long a time. The nurses in the clinics will be hit first and once they break down it will be us on the line. We obviously have very limited choice left in terms of alternatives.
If this addiction is not fed there are going to be riots on the streets. After all addictions have to be positively fed or they will result in behaviors that are erratic and dangerous for the collective calm of the system. There will be baton charge and there will be blood let loose. Therefore there has to be a solution. We do not have the solution and that makes this situation very challenging for us.
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