The Weekly Advertiser - Wednesday, April 27, 2016

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Vol. 18 18 No. No. 42 27 Vol.

FREE FREE PUBLICATION PUBLICATION

Wednesday, January Wednesday, April 13, 27, 2016 2016

NEW MEMORIAL: Vietnam veterans Rex Dumesny, left, and Harold Baker, right, flank Second World War veteran Arthur Smith during a Pimpinio War Memorial dedication and unveiling. Anzac Day services, page 7.

Drug campaign win A

BY DEAN LAWSON

Wimmera couple ‘overwhelmed’ after a win in a decade-long campaign for tighter prescription-medication monitoring in Victoria, will now intensify their push for a national approach to the issue.

John and Margaret Millington, of Nhill, were with Health Minister Jill Hennessy in Melbourne when she announced a $30-million State Government commitment to establish a real-time prescription-monitoring system. The new centralised system will be designed to reduce the number of

drug-overdose deaths by preventing ‘prescription shopping’. Mrs Millington said the challenge was to now make real-time monitoring mandatory across Australia. “Our borders are porous which means we have a leaking bucket,” she said. “The state ministers meet monthly and surely this is the catalyst for each state to now follow suit.” Without a centralised system a lengthy time lag in prescription monitoring has meant patients have been able to access medication through multiple doctors and pharmacies, often without detection.

IN THIS ISSUE

The Millingtons’ 34-year-old son Simon, who became addicted to painkillers while recovering from a 1994 car accident, died from an overdose of prescription medication he accessed through the monitoring loophole in 2010. “The announcement was exactly what not only us, but the Wimmera Drug Action Task Force has been campaigning for,” Mr Millington said. “There are people who will be cautious about a need for more monitoring, but in actual fact, it is about putting a life-saving system in place. “Coroners have been calling for it and it will be a positive tool for doc-

tors – it means they can confidently prescribe medication having full upto-date knowledge of what patients are already taking. “We have real-time monitoring for just about everything else. “We can get $20 out of the automatic teller machine in Horsham, but obviously can not get that money again from a similar machine in Nhill. “Having this apply to prescription medication is what we have been working on for 10 to 12 years. “Now this will be in place people in similar circumstances to Simon won’t be able to get on the treadmill as easily.

“Doctors will be able to say ‘no’ with confidence.” More people die from prescription drug overdoses than in road trauma. Since 2012 there have been 21 coronial findings calling for a Victorian real-time monitoring system.

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High-risk drugs

The State Government has included the project, which includes monitoring software, additional counselling and addiction-treatment services and training and support for doctors and pharmacists in the early identification and help of prescription drug users, in the 2016-17 State Budget. Continued page 3


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