Drug ban has ruined my life

I was interested to read your journalist, Daniel Thomas’s article on the Co-proxamol (dextropropoxyphene) ban in the Cyprus Mail (‘Painkillers to be withdrawn from the market’, July 2009).

Particularly as Cyprus has been a source of salvation for many UK based patients who have found all alternates to dextropropoxyphene either too strong, too weak or with intolerable side effects.

In Cyprus, it appears that prescription of Co-proxamol is the decision of the doctor. Please can you consider balancing your article by researching the utter mess this kneejerk ban has had in the UK?
We all agree accidental and deliberate dextropropoxyphene deaths should be addressed.

Unfortunately the utter mess that the UK based (and according to your report now EMEA) means there will be thousands of pain-wracked patients with no pain relief. Several of whom are now enquiring of the Swiss Dignitas Suicide Clinic.

My own example is typical. Following spinal surgery, I was on Co-proxamol for 18 years and it enabled me to work and create over 70 jobs. Now my life is ruined. I have a medicine cabinet full of morphine as a substitute for dextropropoxyphene. I refuse to use it as morphine is much too strong and I suggest more dangerous. It is a fact that morphine prescriptions in the UK have rocketed by 40 per cent since the dextropropoxyphene ban here.

There have even been three dedicated UK Parliamentary debates dedicated to the mess of the dextropropoxyphene ban. The essence is that the decision to prescribe should be handed back to the doctors.

The UK Medical Health Regulator has ignored all three Sovereign UK Parliament debates. Following a formal complaint to the British General Medical Council, he has removed his registration and now is an ex-doctor. Even with this the British MHRA refuse to listen to Parliament.

So now all UK Coroners are being contacted with a view to establishing if anyone has committed suicide because of untreated pain following the dextropropoxyphene ban. This is taking time. But if just one of the UK’s 1.7 million former dextropropoxyphene patients has ended their life because of the mishandled MHRA ban, then the matter will be referred to the UK Police for criminal charges to be considered against the officials culpable.

Your article seems fair. But as with most things, there are two sides to a story. A little balance and reporting of both aspects of the issue would be warmly appreciated.
 
Russ McLean,
UK

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.