GP allegedly over-prescribing drugs

GARDAÍ in Cork have referred a complaint to the Irish Medical Council concerning the over-prescribing of powerful tranquillising drugs by a doctor in the city.

The referral arises from a complaint that a GP has been prescribing benzodiazepines (BZDs), a highly addictive family of drugs such as Valium and Xanax, to people over long periods which goes against strict guidelines. Clinical best practice rules state the drugs should not be prescribed for longer than four weeks for first-time users.

Figures compiled by the Irish Examiner show that in 2009, more than 1.3 million scripts were written at a cost of €3m. As this only accounts for the medical card and drug payment schemes, it is a vast underestimation of the true extent of the prescribing patterns.