Dr. David Juurlink says colleagues must accept blame for fentanyl ODs

There's a call today for doctors to do more to prevent overdoses from drugs like fentanyl.

We've been prescribing them like crazy.- Dr. David Juurlink

Dr. David Juurlink, a staff physician in the Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, was a guest on CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning with Leisha Grebinski.

"Doctors have a measure of ownership in this issue," Jurrlink said before offering this challenge to the medical field to help stop fentanyl abuse on the streets.

"Think twice before we prescribe the stuff."

Fentanyl overdoses are on the rise right across the country, including here in Saskatchewan. According to a recent study by the Canadian Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use, the powerful painkiller-turned-street drug was thought to be a cause or contributing cause in 655 deaths between 2009 and 2014.

"In a sense it's the tip of the iceberg," Juurlink told Saskatoon Morning host Leisha Grebinski.

"People are dying. The number of people who have died of opioids in the last 15, 20 years is just staggering."

Juurlink said that according to data from the Centers for Disease Control, there have been more than 200,000 deaths, and stressed that the data doesn't tell the stories of all the lives destroyed by addictions to opioids.

Experts and drug companies pushed powerful drugs for pain relief

The blame, he suggested for over prescribing opioids finds its roots among well-meaning pain experts backed by the companies that make the drugs.

"I think we really have to cut back on how liberally we prescribe these drugs, we've been prescribing them like crazy for 20 years now," he said.