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Re: Ashton Rocks! » bassman

Posted by Quintal on February 4, 2007, at 13:13:48

In reply to Re: Ashton Rocks!, posted by bassman on February 4, 2007, at 11:22:19

>I never thought I'd read anything by Ashton that I thought was sensible, either.

I'm not sure what you're getting at bassman. Everything I've read by Prof. Ashton has been sensible and rational - often exceptionally clear-sighted. Even when I disagreed with her opinions I would never have argued with that.

>I think Dr. Ashton is just mainstream, "let the mentally-ill suffer".

Where in her letter did Prof. Ashton advocate neglecting the mentally ill? It seems to me she's actually defending long-term benzodiazepine users from abrupt the withdrawal some doctors have made their patients endure after receiving shoddy advice from the Chief Medical Officer:
__________________________________________________

"You do not seem to understand or acknowledge the distinction between long-term prescribed benzodiazepine users and those who misuse or abuse the drugs recreationally, along with opiates, cocaine and other "hard drugs". The problems and needs of prescribed benzodiazepine users were described in detail to you in our meeting in 2004. The only one of our suggested recommendations that you supported was to persuade the Chief Medical Officer to send a letter to doctors asking them to reduce their prescribing of benzodiazepines. At the meeting I personally offered to assist the CMO in drafting such a letter. This offer was ignored and his badly worded letter was a predictable disaster which resulted in many general practitioners abruptly reducing benzodiazepine prescriptions to long-term patients and some PCTs reducing their budgeting for such drugs - with similar unfortunate effects on patients."

"Prescribed benzodiazepine users do not have proper access to primary health care services because general practitioners lack the expertise and time to withdraw long-term prescribed patients from benzodiazepines, and the waiting list for psychological therapists, who are in any case not properly trained, is up to two years in most PCTs. These prescribed patients also do not have access to secondary health care services: they are regularly refused treatment because they are not abusing opiates or other hard drugs."
__________________________________________________

This is hardly black and white simplicity. To my mind it shows a deep empathy and understanding for benzodiazepine users and abusers and also a willingness to defend their right to humane treatment against the will of self-serving politicians.

Q


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