When I first heard about actor Heath Ledger dying I was really shocked. He never came off as the kind of guy that would over dose on pills. When I found this article on accidental deaths I was relieve to find out Heath Ledger was not really an abuser. Accidental deaths are common among wounded and recovering soldiers and the number of these deaths has risen more than 68 percent between 1999 and 2004.
Dr. Edward V. Craig, an attending surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York said that “Many patients, particularly older people suffering from multiple health problems, may take six or seven medications to combat their symptoms. Even young people may accumulate a considerable pharmacopoeia.” Craig even mentions cases where patients are consuming ten to twelve different medications at once.
The reason many of these patients are dying is because doctors are not paying enough attention to what they are prescribing and completely ignoring any other medications that patient is already on. The legal prescription oxycodone is one of the leading drugs to these accidental overdoses.
Someone taking prescriptions and additionally taking over the counter medication for a cold or even drinking a glass of wine can be lethal to someone. This combination of drugs leads to depressing respiration which, in other terms, that person falls asleep, stops breathing, and never wakes up. This is what occurred in Heath Ledger’s case.
“Better oversight by doctors and the development of portable electronic medical records that don’t rely on patients for accuracy are solutions to the growing problem,” Craig said. Patients also need to be informed of the effects of any drugs they are taking.
Aleccia, Jonel. “Ignorance Blamed for Prescription Drug Deaths.” MSNBC (2008). 8 Feb. 2008