Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 • A 11
Patients defend physician; most find care But Rotchford also has critics who cite impact of prescriptions Patients of Dr. James Kimber “Kim” Rotchford are coming out to support him as he attempts to sustain his medical practice in the aftermath of a dramatic federal raid of his home and office on Dec. 21. To date the information that led to the searches is secret; no arrest has been made and no charges filed. The Leader asked patients of Rotchford to step forward and tell their stories – and they did, in droves. On Monday, almost 20 people called to comment on how Rotchford’s loss of a license to prescribe pain medications had impacted them and what they experienced while under his care. Not everyone who commented on Rotchford was a supporter. At least one person who claimed to be a relative of a Rotchford patient gave a much harsher view of the physician’s practices.
“I couldn’t understand why they would do something to hurt this many people all in one whack,” said LeRoy. Originally he did not want to visit Rotchford, whose practice also encompassed treatment for addicts. “I thought it was just for drug addicts so I wasn’t going to go there, and there were a lot of addicts. But two thirds [of the patients] were just pain people,” said LeRoy. He said he suffers from chronic abdominal pain due to complications from bladder cancer surgery. He said he had been trading art for care with Rotchford. “He helped me so much,” said LeRoy, who used methadone but has been able to taper down from a dose prescribed by a previous doctor. “I know there are a lot of people who dislike him but those are usually the Not just addicts drug addicts,” LeRoy said. “I’m going to be OK, “He won’t prescribe opiates but there are other peo- unless they’re really needed.” ple,” said David LeRoy, 58, of Port Angeles, who has PaiN aNd dePressioN Christine Gullixson, 60, been coming to Rotchford for four years for treatment has been driving from Port of chronic pain. LeRoy has Angeles to Port Townsend been referred to another to see Rotchford for about five years. She said she pain clinic in Jamestown. has been disabled since she was injured by a gunshot wound in 1984. She also suffers from degenerative arthritis. “He’s the only doctor around who addressed the pain,” she said. “It seems a lot of people look down on this until they need it themselves. Dr. Rotchford was pretty brave in addressing the issue on the Olympic Peninsula. There are a lot
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Chairs are lined up for a free Tuesday class in pain management at Dr. James Kimber “Kim” Rotchford’s office Uptown. Photo by Allison Arthur
of people out here who are in a lot of pain who don’t know what they’re going to do now and have no primary care doctor.” “I think he saved my life. He got me out of a blur and state of depression.” Gullixson uses methadone to control her pain. Taken properly, “the way you’re supposed to, there are no ups or downs,” she said. Although she also will be seen now at the Jamestown clinic, Gullixson acknowledged that when she heard about Rotchford’s troubles and that he would not be able to prescribe medication, she started lowering her dose of methadone. She said methadone is a cheap, long-acting painkiller and that many chronic pain sufferers are switching to it from OxyContin or morphine. “If he was to start up again, I would go back to him,” said Gullixson. “He took care of the pain and the depression.”
ly gave his name but then changed his mind out of concern for his family, said he was shocked when he found out that Rotchford had lost his ability to prescribe painkillers. “I just knew the guy was a humanitarian,” he said. He moved to Port Townsend in June from Los Angeles and currently is employed. Like others, he attended a free clinic on Thursdays, which helped him to purchase Subutex, a drug that can stabilize and improve brain function. Now that Rotchford can’t prescribe that drug, the man said he planned to switch to a private physician “who will charge me $200 a visit.” The man said he is not on Medicare or Medicaid and “has never been on welfare.” “I’ve either suffered or I’ve worked,” the man said. He intends to pay for Subutex. “It’s expensive, but in comparison to say HeroiN addict better A 44-year-old former [what] a full blown opiheroine addict, who initial- ate addict [uses], it’s a lot cheaper,” he said. “There are a lot of people who won’t be [able to afford it] who will probably go back to using street drugs,” the man said. “It wasn’t a methadone clinic.
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Dr. Rotchford was trying to steer people away from methadone” and toward Subutex, he said.
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A 50-year-old Chimacum woman who is a social worker and a foster parent for two children said she wouldn’t have made it without Rotchford. “Dr. Rotchford is the strictest doctor I’ve ever had,” she said Monday, asking that her name not be used. “I think he’s paving the way in a world that just isn’t accepted right now.” She said she suffered from migraines and depression, lost her business and was homebound for months after being hospitalized for depression. Rotchford put her on methadone and required her to go to counseling just like drug addicts. After Rotchford gave up his license to dispense methadone, the woman said she called her primary physician in Port Townsend. She was told to try the emergency room at Jefferson Healthcare’s hospital, she said, or outside methadone clinics. The woman was able to see her physician on Monday. He gave her a new prescription for methadone. But he also told her that a methadone clinic in Seattle was overwhelmed with new patients from Jefferson County. She thanked Rotchford. “I would never have made it this far without Dr. Rotchford and I’m an asset to the community,” the woman said of wanting to support Rotchford and hoping people learn about his practice and what it really entails.
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David LeRoy Rotchford patient
rificing patient health for profits, blame him for exacerbating some patients’ medical problems and creating new addictions where they did not exist before. “Mental health sends people to him to get well and get off of there [sic] habits, which I think they do,” wrote Sarah Luzadder to the Leader. “But he gives them a nice little methadone habit instead. This is almost impossible to kick, and he knows this, which keeps the money flowing … I personally have family members that have suffered under his care, and ones that still do. I hold him responsible for everything.” The Leader made multiple attempts to contact Luzadder to learn more, but she did not respond by press time. She has a California area code. She submitted her comment to the Leader website with her name. Rotchford, asked for a response, said he understands that he has his critics among patients and their family members. “The person who wrote that is under the belief that the only way to get them off” drugs is to have them go through detox, he said. “And here I’m keeping them exacerbatiNg Problems on something. If they have While many have come that belief then it would out in support of Rotchford, follow that what I’m doing others accuse him of sac- is wrong.”
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