VA Doctors were pressured to prescribe veterans opiates

VA doctors tell House lawmakers of pressure to prescribe veterans opiates
The Center for Investigative Reporting
By Aaron Glantz
Published: October 10, 2013

Department of Veterans Affairs physicians told a House subcommittee Thursday that hospital administrators regularly pressured them to prescribe highly addictive narcotic painkillers to patients, even those they had not personally examined.

The hearing marked the first time VA officials have spoken publicly about the skyrocketing number of painkiller prescriptions since The Center for Investigative Reporting revealed the trend last month.

"There are multiple instances when I have been coerced or even ordered to write for Schedule II narcotics when it was against my medical judgment," said Dr. Pamela Gray, a physician who formerly worked at the VA hospital in Hampton, Va.

Primary care doctors who don't want to prescribe large amounts of opiates may resign, do as they are told or be terminated, Gray said. Gray was fired.

In his testimony before the health subcommittee of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the VA's principal deputy undersecretary for health, Dr. Robert Jesse, said the large amounts of opiates prescribed at VA hospitals and clinics are part of a national crisis that extends beyond the agency.

Jesse said that if physicians feel pressured by their superiors to prescribe, that is "absolutely indefensible" and they "should feel absolutely that they can refuse to do that."
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