Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). are my new heroes. Kohl and Whitehouse are asking the Drug Enforcement Agency to scale back their enforcement of the Controlled Substance Act as it is “producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly patients needed pain medication” reports The Washington Post.
As a doctor in Virginia said, “”Prescribing narcotics in a long-term care facility seems to be more of a nuisance than it needs to be. For the doctor and the nurse it’s a nuisance, but for the patient it is needless suffering.”
Last December and January, my mother-in-law was under hospice care in our home and I could not imagine not having morphine to administer to her in her final weeks.