Rate of adverse events to opiates in the chronic pain
Shane Le Brun made this Official Information request to Ministry of Health
The request was partially successful.
From: Shane Le Brun
Dear Ministry of Health,
I would like to request information in adverse events specifically related to chronic pain, as the US has had an explosion of Opiate over prescriptions, and a high number of deaths, (currently estimated at 17k Per year) due to the structure in NZ for prescriptions with Pharmac this explosion of overuse of opiates is not mirrored directly in NZ.
Since 2004 how many deaths have been attributable to overdose on opiates, or opiates in combination another class of drug?
Of these deaths, how many were patients identified as suffering from a chronic pain disorder, and overdosed on legitimately prescribed opiates, instead of recreational/abuse deaths, IE Heroin, diverted medications etc.
Since 2004 How many emergency administrations of Naloxone have been conducted for Opiate overdose in NZ.
Of these administrations of Naloxone, how many were patients identified as suffering from a chronic pain disorder, and having legitimate instead of recreational/abuse overdoses, IE Heroin etc.
Are low Oxygen saturation events recorded? If so, what is the threshold for an event to be recorded?
Could I please have an annual count of low oxygen saturation events (close calls with overdose) attributable to Opiates, or Opiates in combination with another class of drug, which occurred in patients who were not undergoing surgery at the time of the vent eg, Emergency departments, Orthopedic and Neuro wards trying to manage patient analgesia.
Could all of these statistics please be broken down to annual scores so that trends can be observed over time.
Yours faithfully,
Shane Le Brun
Ministry of Health
Dear Mr Le Brun
Thank you for your request for official information, received by the
Ministry of Health on 13 January 2015.
Your request has been received and logged. As required under the Official
Information Act 1982, the Ministry will respond to your request within 20
working days. You should receive a response on or before 13 February
2015.
If a large amount of information has been requested or if the Ministry
needs to consult in order to make a decision, we may need to extend this
date (this is provided for in section 15A of the Act). We will advise you
if such an extension is necessary.
The Ministry's reference number for your request is: H201500068
Yours sincerely
Government Relations
Corporate Services
Ministry of Health[OIA #2394 email]
[1]mailto:[email address]
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Ministry of Health
Dear Mr Le Brun,
Thank you for your request of 13 January 2015, to request official
information about deaths attributable to overdose on opiates, opiate
deaths related to chronic pain disorder, naloxone administration for
opiate overdose in New Zealand and low oxygen saturation events.
The Ministry of Health is pleased to provide you with our response.
Kind regards
Suzanne Holyoak
Information Analyst
Analytical Services
National Collections and Reporting,
National Health Board
Ministry of Health
04 816 2811
[1]mailto:[email address]
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attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege.
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distribute or copy this message or attachments.
If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender
immediately and delete this message.
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Shane Le Brun left an annotation ()
Its troubling the the MOH dont keep official tallies of Overdose deaths and Naloxone administrations. To their credit, they went out of their way to fish out a study from 2004-2010 that included a tally of overdoses.
Link to this