Judge Schroeder Jr. said the potential for a crisis was serious enough to warrant a major change in Gosy’s bail. Dr. Gosy will now be able to return to his practice and, under the direction of a supervising physician, make recommendations on the use of painkillers and other narcotics.
Judge Schroeder Jr. is quoted as saying “What’s the alternative – do nothing and make 10,000 people suffer?” With patients not having access to Gosy’s practice or a suitable alternative, the judge said, he worries about their health and the impact on their pain from illnesses and injuries.
“You created a danger, as well,” Schroeder told federal prosecutors.
Dr. Gosy’s office had been kept open using three doctors. Dr. Robert A. Milch, one of the three doctors, predicted that the office would close within two weeks and said the only way to keep it open is for Gosy to return. He said Gosy’s experience and expertise are crucial to the treatment of his patients’ complex medical problems. The doctor also warned of a “veritable tsunami” of chronic pain patients flooding the community looking for care if Gosy’s practice were allowed to shut down.
Prosecutors opposed Gosy’s request. What prosecutors are against is giving Gosy the ability to prescribe narcotics or ask others to prescribe them on his behalf.
This decision affected 10,000 patients. But what about smaller practices that get closed down? What about practices of 1000 patients, or 500, or even the 150 patients in my practice when it closed? Does their suffering not matter? Is it only government fear of what 10,000 hurting people could do to a community trying to find treatment that mattered?
The important statement here is Shroeder’s statement to the prosecution that they created a danger. Every DEA action and government prosecution of a pain management physician in this country creates a danger. And it is high time that precedence be set stating that danger. Now we just have to get the country to understand that every life matters, not just a large number in one place.
When my practice was forced to close the first time in 2006, I walked into an exam room with a patient. He was the image of a Hell’s Angel—black leather motorcycle jacket, doo rag, braided hair, tattoos all over his neck and visible body parts, and very muscular. I told him I was being forced to close. He immediately began sobbing uncontrollably. It was hard to see a grown man looking like he did cry. But any embarrassment on his part didn’t show. Just fear and despair. He told me I was the sixth pain management clinic he had gone to that was closed—and probably the last one available to him. “What am I going to do?” he sobbed. I had no answer for him, only sympathy.
Two weeks later I received his death certificate to sign. It listed heart attack as the immediate cause, but I knew that was the result of the real cause—chronic pain and despair.
Linda Cheek is a teacher and disenfranchised medical doctor, turned activist, author, and speaker. A victim of prosecutorial misconduct and outright law-breaking of the government agencies DEA, DHHS, and DOJ, she hopes to be a part of exonerating all doctors illegally attacked through the Controlled Substance Act. She holds the key to success, as she can offset the government propaganda that drugs cause addiction with the truth: The REAL Cause of Drug Abuse.
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Please start asking some real questions like are any drug addicts no longer abusing drugs with these policies because we know that Prohibition does not work? The country is so concerned over the raise in heroin addiction and you will find, if you really look, that the raise is directly connected to these policies because if a drug addict can’t get the pills they want, they will and are turning to heroin and now our government is supporting the Drug Cartels who will get a drug addict anything they want just as the “Mob’s” did for alcohol. Did we learn nothing from history?
Why is the life of a drug addict more important than the lives of those who are in pain? Why are politicians acting as doctors in the decisions of what is the best way to treat us?
Mothers can no longer care for their children and bread winners no longer able to support their families. Who is going to pay for that care and where will that money come from? Who is going to care for those like myself who strive to stay independent and live within the boundaries of our disabilities but can no longer do so without the pain relief we need?
Health Care in this country is going to fail under these policies and it must when doctors refuse to take on patients who are in pain, clinic are closing and good doctors can no longer treat their patients in the way they know is best without fear of prosecution? Who are they going to blame for this? Obama Care? Someone must be blamed for the failure of our health care system to deal with those who are in pain.
Chronic Pain is a disability and we are being discriminated against because of those who will and do abuse drugs just like any religion or race who is discriminated against because of the actions of a few. We need someone to stand for us, talk about us, do something for us in this losing war on drugs.
We are told that 13% of Veteran’s abuse drugs but what about the 87% who need relief from pain and now can’t get that relief? Chronic Pain can and does kill and those who can no longer deal with a life in pain 24/7 will take their own lives and Veterans are the most vulnerable after the horrors of war. America makes these Veterans and makes the pain they now live with and yet we are turning our backs on them and telling them there is nothing we can do for the pain they are in.
Why aren’t pain patients given the same rights as others to decide what is the best care for their problems? Politics needs to stay out of our relationship between our doctors and the care we need.
Please do your jobs, do it right, look into the problems these policies are making that no one will talk about because of the fear of supporting drug addicts but we are NOT drug addicts, we are patients who need help.
Please look into the politics of all of this as we know the reasons behind this attack on pain medications after losing the war on Marijuana, which will become legal in this country, in order to validate their existence and the billions of dollars wasted in this losing war on drugs are now attacking those who are in pain. Look into the big pharmacies and the fight against them and yes, they need to be held responsible for never finding cures but only drugs that mask the symptoms to make more money but taking all of this out on those who’s only sin is that they are in pain, is not the right way to fight any of these injustices.
Please, think of the quality of life of those who are suffering in pain and think of your families, your parents, your children and how you would feel if they were suffering in pain and told there is nothing that can be done.
Help us, help the millions of American’s both Veterans and civilians alike who are actually being tortured because of these policies. Please look at all sides of this war on drugs and the dangers of drug abuse but remember, there are millions of us who need relief from our pain. They can’t fix the problems, can’t give us what we need to live with any kind of quality of life without the pain medications that are available so why are they torturing us?
Check out my latest post “American Family Practice Association Failure”.