Would you place your trust in a drugged-out doctor?

More doctors turning towards drugs because of excessive workload, stress, easy access.

ISLAMABAD: When a passed-out nursing student in her hostel washroom in Rawalpindi was rushed to the emergency, the doctors said she had overdosed on a prescription medicine. Later, she conceded that she had gotten “hooked” to diazepam, a drug used to treat anxiety and insomnia.

But hers is not an isolated case, with the number of medical practitioners resorting to drug abuse increasing, according to senior doctors.

“It is alarming to note drug addiction in health professionals since they are dealing with other lives,” said a senior doctor asking not to be named. “How can a health professional tend to a patient when he himself is high?” he said and urged for a need to screen all the health professionals for their blood and urine tests on regular basis.

The current system of drugs distribution in hospitals across the country makes it all too easy for doctors to get the medicines they want.

“All medicines are dispensed and written by the health professionals,” said the doctor.

Benazir Bhutto Hospital Institute of Psychiatry’s Registrar Dr Shahid Ali conceded that there has been an increase in the number of “health professionals getting into drugs.” He estimated that about 5% of all drug addicts are doctors.

“It is usually because of excessive workload, stress and most of all easy access,” he said. Dr Ali said health professionals are well aware of the medicines which could help them get rid of anxiety. Often, small doses result in long-term addiction, he added.

He said opioids, narcotics, painkillers, mood elevators, sedatives and sleeping pills are common among health professionals. Doctors mostly, from the anaesthesia department, take narcotics and painkillers but get away with it by taking in controlled quantities.

He said in the past few years, some cases were reported in hospitals in which health professionals were found unconscious in their rooms, particularly nurses and lower medical staff.

“The trend of taking sleeping pills is very common among young nurses as they find it is a quick fix for getting rid of stress. Doctors prefer IV injections to inject drugs such as avil and heroine,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd,  2012.