LOBBYING the pharmaceutical industry was a “scary space” for Margaret and John Millington who refused to give up in their work to prevent other families enduring what drugs had done to theirs.
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Their son Simon died eight years ago after a 16-year addiction to pain killers.
It was a bittersweet moment for the Nhill couple, who were in Ballarat on Monday for the launch of Australia’s first real-time prescription monitoring system.
Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy announced SafeScript would roll out across western Victoria on Tuesday.
“If anyone told me years ago we would have addiction in our family, I would never have believed them. We are a happy family, growing up in the country,” Mrs Millington said.
We’ve paid a high price for this to happen but we want to prevent future Simons.
- Margaret Millington
“...We have achieved what we set out to achieve...we’re about helping others and I think we’ve finally done that to the ultimate.”
Simon Millington was a gentle, fun-loving country bloke who embraced life. He loved cars, skiing, shooting and above all, his daughter Maddie.
A car accident in 1994 left Simon in a perilous condition from which he required ongoing treatment. Mrs Millington said Simon gradually and innocently grew dependent on his medication.
It was 10 years later, when the Millingtons started to realise the grips of the addiction that they found there was no central system for doctors and pharmacists to monitor prescriptions.
SafeScript aims to eliminate doctor shopping, a key way patients with prescription medication dependence can obtain unsafe quantities of medication.
Real-time prescription monitoring will come into effect at more than 400 sites across the Western Victoria Primary Health Network region. This includes Ballarat, Ararat, Stawell, Maryborough, the Hepburn Shire, Geelong and Warrnambool. The program will move into the rest of the state next year.
This is a start for the Millingtons, who will continue to lobby for real-time prescription monitoring to become Australia-wide.
“Our borders are porous. Simon often would often go over the border to have scripts filled,” Mrs Millington said.
“Unless this is nationwide, it will not be as effective.”
More than stopping ‘doctor shopping’, Minister says
REAL-time prescription monitoring will come into effect on Tuesday in what Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy says is a move to also better educate the community about dangerous pain killers.
Western Victoria is the first region in Australia to take up a centralised watch system, with the rest of the state set to follow next year.
Minister Hennessy said prescription drug addiction was a major, complex problem nationwide but western Victoria was a great starting point to set up the SafeScript program because there was large cities in Ballarat and Geelong and contrasting small remote locations.
“We want to make sure we’ve got a system that operates in a big hospitals, pharmacies and also in places where you’ve got a (general practitioner) who may not have all the systems and support around them,” Minister Hennessy said.
The system will monitor strong pain killers like oxycodone, commonly prescribed sleeping drug Sillnox, many drugs used to treat anxiety and codeine, which was blocked from over-the-counter use in February.
We’re training people not just about a new system but also to lift the level of education, understanding and knowledge in the workforce and in the community about risks of prescription drugs.
Minister Hennessy said the system aimed to eradicate doctor shopping among those who were dependent on prescription medication, it could also help GPs and pharmacists to identify developing addictions or potential black market use.
There were 414 Victorian deaths from prescription medicine overdoses last year. Ballarat averaged 5.1 overdose deaths per 100,000 people each year between 2009-2016.
Accidental drug-related death in Australia is more than double the road toll and higher than death from heroin or illicit drug use.
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