asked the Minister for Health whether his attention has been drawn to recent reports regarding the irresponsible attitude of some doctors in the matter of prescribing certain harmful drugs; and if he will make a statement on the position.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Drug Prescription.
4.
I presume that the Deputy is referring to an article on amphetamine prescribing in the current issue of the Journal of the Irish Medical Association and to the reference to the prescribing of barbiturates and tranquillisers in the recent report of the Medico-Social Research Board. I have seen these two publications.
The Deputy will be aware that, with the agreement of representatives of the medical profession, I made regulations in 1969 and 1970 controlling rigidly the availability of amphetamines. The article in the Journal of the Irish Medical Association reviews the operation of the regulations following a meeting which I had with the representatives of the profession on 1st March last. While, as the article points out, a very limited number of practitioners may be over-liberal in their prescribing of these substances the position is incomparably better than it was before the regulations were made. The matter is being kept under review.
As regards the reference in the report of the Medico-Social Research Board I indicated previously in reply to a question by the Deputy on 17th November, 1970, that I had taken a considerable interest in the question of the use of tranquillisers and anti-depressants in medicine and that I had spoken publicly on the matter on appropriate occasions.
The Working Party on Drug Abuse in their recently published report refer to the position regarding the prescribing, administering and supply of drugs liable to abuse and make certain recommendations in this regard. I am having these recommendations examined and consultation with the appropriate professional and other bodies will follow, as soon as possible.
The Minister will agree there is no irresponsible prescribing?
No, there is no irresponsible prescribing. If there is any it is a matter for the Medical Association to examine.
When a duly qualified medical practitioner is prescribing tranquillisers, who is to determine whether he is prescribing them in excess or otherwise? Surely this question is a libel on the profession and nothing else?
The Deputy has misunderstood the terms of the Medico-Social Research Board Report. What they suggested was that there might be consultation with the medical profession in regard to the length of time for which a person was given a prescription for certain types of barbiturates and tranquillisers, and that was not necessarily a reflection on the medical profession at all.
I fully agree with the Minister, but who could determine the length of time for which it is necessary to prescribe barbiturates except the person who is actually prescribing them and treating the person concerned? How can any outside body or commission decide whether the administering of the drugs should be stopped or continued? This is just nonsense.
Again I think the Deputy has misunderstood the position. This matter of the extent to which barbiturates and tranquillisers are prescribed is being raised not by people outside the medical profession but by men and women in the medical profession. Sir Derrick Dunlop, who is the Chairman of the Drug Advisory Board in Great Britain, and a most eminent physician whose word is universally respected, drew attention to the fact that one hour's sleep out of every ten in England and Wales was drug-induced. He said the doctors should begin to think about this.
Does the Minister not agree—he has said it himself— that the reduction in the numbers being admitted to mental hospitals is, perhaps, due to the prescribing of antidepressants and tranquillisers?
Of course it is a matter of argument. As the Deputy will know from Sir Derrick Dunlop's report, there were delivered to the population of England and Wales, some 50 million—14 million prescriptions in one year solely for two mild tranquillisers—librium and valium. The Deputy's explanation may be a partial one but it still is in the mind of the medical profession that they should start thinking about this.
It may be in the mind of those not connected with the public.
Question No. 5.
Is it a fact that the Government are using tranquillisers now?
I am not aware of it.
(Interruptions.)
This is an extremely serious subject.