Doctors are prescribing deadly pain medications every day in this country, while drug poisoning is the number one cause of unintentional deaths each year.
According to the internationally-renowned safety advocates at Illinois’ National Safety Council (NSC), every single day over 100 people in this country die from an overdose of opioids, most of which are prescription drugs.
In fact, the NSC reports that drug poisoning is the number one cause of unintentional death in the United States today.
Preventable opioid overdose deaths have escalated 633% since 1999. One particular age group, young adults between the ages of 25 to 34 years, has seen a staggering 904% increase in opioid overdose fatalities since 1999.
Doctors Prescribe Opioids for Pain
Every day, doctors prescribe a variety of pain medications to patients who have suffered injuries in accidents and face long-term recoveries, or perhaps even a future where constant, severe pain is their new reality. For more on serious and long-term injuries suffered by accident victims, read:
- Traumatic Brain Injury Accidents: the Cost of Care and Treatment
- National Burn Awareness Week: Helping Child Accident Victims Suffering Severe or Fatal Burns
- Pain Awareness: Claims to Cover an Accident Victim’s Pain Damages.
Sadly, some of these patients become addicted to their prescription pain medications. This danger has been recognized within the medical establishment for a long time. Doctors know that prescription opioids are extremely addictive. See, e.g., Miotto, Karen, et al. “Diagnosing addictive disease in chronic pain patients.” Psychosomatics 37.3 (1996): 223-235.
Many of these deadly opioid fatalities can be traced back to a doctor’s prescription pad.
Nevertheless, the amount of prescription pain medications being prescribed by physicians remains shockingly high. The NSC points to a survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Medical Health Services Administration which found over 4,300,000 nonmedical users of painkillers in the United States today.
Preventable Prescription Opioid Deaths
According to the NSC, most of our country’s preventable drug overdose deaths (69%) involve opioids. From the NSC we know:
- A single category of opioids that includes morphine, oxycodone, and hydrocodone contributed to 12,101 deaths in 2016
- Synthetic opioids (other than methadone) are the most likely cause of a opioid overdose
- The synthetic opioid fentanyl has seen a 106% increase in fatal overdoses since 2015.
Morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and fentanyl are all drugs that must be obtained with a doctor’s prescription. These opioids may be recognized by their common brand names, which include:
- Morphine: Infumorph, Astramorph, Duramorph, DepoDur
- Oxycodone: Roxicodone, Oxycontin, Oxecta
- Hydrocodone: Vicodin, Vicodin ES, Vicodin HP, Anexsia, Lortab, Lorcet, Lorcet Plus, Norco, Zydone
- Fentanyl: Sublimaze, Abstral, Subsys, Duragesic, Ionsys
The Doctor’s Legal Liability for Addiction or Death from Prescription Painkillers
Given the many years where medical research has confirmed that pain medications, particularly opioids, are extremely addictive, and the reality that drug poisonings are the number one cause of preventable deaths in the United States today, the issue becomes not if, but when, the doctor who prescribed the fatal prescription pain medication is forced to bear the legal responsibility for his or her patient’s addiction and death.
Medical malpractice and wrongful death laws exist in both Indiana and Illinois that force health care providers to accept liability for harm done to their patients and to pay specific damages to the patient (and their loved ones) as a result.
Mistakes in the prescribing of fatal opioids can involve a number of things, such as:
- The wrong dosage of the prescription painkiller;
- The wrong type of opioid is prescribed for the patient’s circumstances and needs; and
- The patient is not properly monitored to foresee and prevent a dependence upon the addictive drug.
Physicians fail in their duty of care when they fail to properly prescribe medications, including painkillers. Doctors in Indiana and Illinois are legally mandated to use reasonable care in the prescribing of medication to their patients.
When the physician fails to exercise this duty of care, people can die. In an opioid death caused by prescription painkillers, each case will be unique, and medical experts will be needed to review the patient’s medical records, medical history, short-term and long-term treatment plans, and more.
Confirming the legal liability of the treating physician may include the need to hire another doctor, who is a pain management specialist, to review the entirety of the patient’s case as well as the treating doctor’s professional history and level of expertise, to establish a breach in the duty of care.
For more on causes of action that may be available due to prescription pain medication deaths, see: Doctors Face Pain Medication Lawsuits and Prescription Opioid Overdose Claims.
Indiana and Illinois Medical Malpractice Lawsuits for Prescription Painkiller Deaths
The medical malpractice and wrongful death laws of Indiana and Illinois are not the same. The legalities in establishing medical malpractice related to an improper opioid prescription will be different, depending upon where the lawsuit accrues.
However, in both states there will be the need to establish that the doctor who prescribed the deadly opioid failed to meet his or her professional standard of care in the prescribing of the fatal pain medication. This standard of care will be fact-specific to the case, and each opioid fatality case will have its own unique circumstances.
There are also time limits (“statutes of limitations”) on filing these kinds of lawsuits against doctors. If the deadline is missed, the case is barred no matter how meritorious it may be.
If you or a loved one suspects physician error in the prescription of deadly opioids, then it is vital that you respect those suspicions and investigate whether or not the doctor is legally responsible for what has happened. Please be careful out there!
