Prescription system prevents ‘double-doctoring’

A clinic in Riversdale is informing patients outright that it won’t prescribe certain drugs to people on the methadone program.

The drugs are inappropriate for patients on methadone, so advisories like that are clear warnings to patients they shouldn’t even try asking for them, said Doug Spitzig, manager of the prescription review program for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan.

"That’s a case of where the physician is stating if you’re double-doctoring, we’re not going to prescribe these drugs," he said, referring to when patients visit multiple doctors attempting to get multiple prescriptions.

The notice at the Riversdale Medical Clinic identified controlled drugs such as benzodiazepines — sedatives including Valium, Xanax and other similar drugs — and narcotics such as Tylenol 3 as drugs that would not be prescribed to anyone on the methadone program. Methadone is a synthetic opiate used in the treatment of heroin addiction.

Taking methadone and benzodiazepines together can be dangerous, even fatal; taking methadone and narcotics together is unsuitable because methadone is used to treat narcotic addictions.

Signs such as the one at the Riversdale clinic indicate the province’s Prescription Information Program (PIP) is doing its job, said Spitzer. Pharmacists and doctors can access the system when a patient requests a prescription to see what medications the person is already taking.

Someone who is trying to get multiple prescriptions could be feeding an addiction or looking to sell the extra drugs on the street.

The doctor at the Riversdale Medical Clinic declined requests for an interview, referring questions instead to the pharmacy and to other doctors.

Bisi Peluola, pharmacist at the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy next door, said notices like the one at the clinic are to prevent people from taking advantage of the system. The demographics of Riversdale — with its higher poverty and drug addiction rates — mean doctors and pharmacists have to be extra vigilant.

"A lot of people don’t realize when we receive prescriptions like that we have to check with PIP," she said.

Brenda McAllister, a program co-ordinator with mental health and addiction services in the Saskatoon Health Region, said many people who are addicted to opiates and seek treatment are also addicted to other drugs, including benzodiazepines, that they’ll still crave.

"It sounds like that clinic is taking a proactive stance," said McAllister.