CHASING THE MORPHINE:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2059607/Patients-face-medicine-shortages-NHS-drugs-sold-abroad.html Read the full story

After reading the article that I have posted the link to, I was reminded of the problem the nurses were faced with when coming to my sister, Lisa's home to administer Morphine, leading up to her passing away.  Each and every time, it seemed, there were phone calls made to pharmacies, including the hospital pharmacies, in an attempt to locate Morphine for Lisa.  In an effort to expedite the availability of the much needed pain killer and therefore have it ready for the nurses to administer when they arrived to tend to my sister, my uncle would be advised to pick it up from a pharmacy, by a certain time.  However, more often than not, the Morphine would either not be at the pharmacy and he would have to travel to another. Or, he would be told to return later in the hope that by this time the Morphine would have reached the assigned pharmacy. Matters were not made any easier by the fact that each day, and toward the end of Lisa's life, more often than once daily, larger doses of Morphine were absolutely necessary.

  If thoughts of  the desperate, who need to score Morphine to keep the incredibly unbearable and excruciating pain at bay, who urgently need another fix and will travel wherever necessary and keep returning until the supplier finally has the little bottle of oblivion that will course through the veins and almost instantly anesthetize...are brought to mind...then you are not far wrong!  


My uncle, in that time, was something akin to a junkie, one source sent him to another with the promise of finding a supplier.  His hands shook from the uncertainty of  the score...his imperative need to secure his stash.  The next day he would be in the same predicament, he would need to leave the house to go in search of  the elusive narcotic.  The only difference in this scenario to the conventional junkie was that he  anxiously scoured suggested locations, not to locate a nefarious dealer, but to find a pharmacy that legitimately stocked medications prescribed by doctors of our National Health Service.  And, the reason he did this was to ensure that the niece that he loved, who was lying suffering in her bed and surrounded by her children and other loved ones,keeping constant vigil, would be able to live her last few days without excruciating pain and pass away in somewhat of a comfortable state.  


Until reading the article in the link, I had merely thought that the situation that had occurred whilst Lisa was in need of Morphine was, of course, diabolical, but a somewhat isolated incident.  However, if indeed the facts of the article are precise then it is absolutely imperative that strict guidelines are introduced to unsure that patients have the drugs they need, when they are needed.      


www.redwellies.info    
 (The Lisa Wiles Red Wellies Brain Tumour Support Fund)   


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2059607/Patients-face-medicine-shortages-NHS-drugs-sold-abroad.html