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The problem with our medical system is that it relies heavily on the patient to be in charge of and on top of their own care.
The people who want to abuse the system have an easy time doing it what with different Doctors and Pharmacies widely available. As long as you are willing to pay cash and don't make any mistakes you can easily go to many different doctors and pharmacies and never be caught abusing.
At the same time we expect that an individual knows every drug they are taking and how they interact. That may be fine for most people but for some, especially the old or infirm that is a lot to expect. You would be amazed at how many people refer to their meds by color and time of day ie "the little yellow one I take in the morning."
It is unfortunately not uncommon for us to catch a drug interaction at the pharmacy. We have had patients bring in prescriptions for drugs they are allergic to. People bring in two prescriptions from two different doctors for drugs which are basically identical. We have even had people bring in drugs which would counteract each other from the same doctor.
Doctors are busy and frankly don't know enough about drugs and how they interact, and while most people will go to the same doctor they think nothing about going to multiple pharmacies.
Just today we had a guest who went to the dentist and got prescriptions for Ibuprofen and Tylenol #4 when they are already taking Coumadin and Vicodin-ES. You cannot take any of those together. The T4+Vicodin is way more Tylenol than a person can have and may cause Liver failure. While Coumadin + motrin= nonstop intestinal bleeding. The patient told here Dentist about the Coumadin but not the Vicodin. Had she gone to the pharmacy right by the dentists office she would have taken the pills and she only came to us because their computers where down so they could not fill the prescriptions.
Very few people really understand all the interactions between medications especially about the dangers of Over-The-Counter meds mixed with prescription drugs. They make mistakes and those mistakes can prove fatal. People who want to abuse the system have an easy time doing it and only the stupid or lazy ever really get caught. While Heath Ledger died because of the mixture he was taking such abuse is not that uncommon and only a small percentage of the people who abuse such drugs have such a reaction.
It is easy when you have the meds prescribed to get then and easy to take them, not get the effect you want, and then take more or something else and not realize that even though you haven't yet felt the effect of them they are in your system and interacting with the drugs you just took.
In short the system in open to abuse and mistakes and only a complete overhaul of the whole system would make such abuse stop. As long as such abuse exists we will hear stories like this.
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