Mayor Bloomberg Orders New York City Public Hospitals To Restrict Access To Painkillers In Emergency Rooms

COMMENTARY | Mayor Bloomberg has managed to take town formerly known as Fun City to a new level of nanny state insanity with his latest dictatorial edict. Not satisfied to ban smoking in public, restrict your ability to cool your car on a scorching hot day, ban guns, limit the size of your soft drinks, and regulate the amount of fat in your food, America’s favorite over the top Mayor has now decided to restrict the supply of painkillers available in NYC public hospital emergency rooms.

It seems the Mayor does not trust the judgement of doctors, so he decided cutting down on the amount of pain killers prescribed by hospital pharmacies is the perfect solution to fight drug addiction. In a speech that would make the evil Marquis De Sade proud, Bloomberg had the unmitigated gall to utter the following words when commenting on the possibility of a shortage of pain killers for people who actually need them:

“Number one, there’s no evidence of that. Number two, supposing it is really true, so you didn’t get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit.”

We all know the Mayor is exempt from the standards applied to mere mortals, especially when it comes to his own well being. The audacity and hypocrisy of billionaire Bloomberg telling people in pain they may have “to suffer a little bit” is truly vile.

This is a man who is so dedicated to his personal comfort that he fitted his fleet of SUVS with portable window air conditioners to cool his vehicles and avoid the city’s crazy anti-idling laws. While you and I melt when we enter our car on a boiling hot summer’s day, the mayor has his cars pre-cooled at the taxpayer’s expense.

It is truly beyond me why the citizen’s of New York City put up with this self serving, let them eat cake, rich man who thinks he has the right to tell everyone else how to live. He hates guns, but he is surrounded by 18 heavily armed special unit police officers. He lives a life of luxury while telling us to make do with less. He expects us to roast while he pre-cools his car, and now he wants us to tolerate a little bit of pain and suffering so he can tell the medical profession how to treat patients in pain.

Our beloved Mayor needs to face reality and place the blame for the increase in drug addiction squarely where it belongs: on the failed War On Drugs. The program has turned to United States into the most incarcerated nation on earth, armed and enriched law enforcement to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, and spent a pittance on treatment and addiction prevention programs.

It is so much easier to invent fantasies of doctors throwing around pain killers like candy and, as a result, force those who are in pain to suffer than it is to acknowledge the failure of the political leadership in America. It is easier to destroy the doctor-patient relationship that is the foundation of medical care than it is to admit the nanny state is infringing on our civil and personal liberties.

One might also wonder what hospitals the Mayor has in mind when he accuses New York City’s medical institutions of fostering addiction. I have suffered broken bones, a stabbing, and a bullet wound when I lived in the Big Apple, and every single emergency room I ever went to gave me a choice of Tylenol or Advil. Even with a bullet still lodged in my leg, they were unwilling to give me prescription pain killers. It is simply untrue that anyone can get easy access to pain killers in the city’s hospitals.

Making matters worse, Bloomberg introduced his new policy plans with a horrifying speech that mentioned marijuana, crack cocaine, and heroin in the first sentence. While the city certainly has a problem with illegal drugs, it has been conclusively proven in dozens of major studies that properly medicating patients who are suffering in pain does not lead to addiction. Bloomberg’s speech is designed to frighten the uneducated, defame the common person, and intimidate hard working medical professionals.

“We talk about drugs, heroin and crack and marijuana, this is one of the big outbursts–and it’s a lot worse around the country than it is here. It’s kids and adults getting painkillers and using them for entertainment purposes, or whatever field of purposes, as opposed to what they are designed for. If you break a leg, you’re going to be in pain, nothing wrong with getting something that reduces the pain. But if you get 20 days worth of pills and you only need them three days, there’s 17 days sitting there. Invariably some of the kids are going to find them, or you’re going to take them and get you addicted.”

I hate to tell you this, Mr. Mayor, but my kids don’t rummage through my medicine chest, and I don’t leave dangerous prescription drugs lying around where anyone can find them. When my father died of cancer, I did what any responsible adult would do and took all his prescription narcotics to the pharmacy that prescribed them and asked them to safely dispose of them. This is how an adult behaves without your constant interference in our lives.

Canada’s famed McGill University conducted a study into pain medication in the United States and found that doctors constantly under-medicated patients for pain. Among the reasons were an unwillingness to listen to the patient’s own descriptions of their suffering, a fear of lawsuit in case of overdose or abuse, and the oppressive regulations of city, state, and federal agencies.

Now we have a big city Mayor who is more than willing to let you suffer a little bit. He is determined to control of aspect of your life from cradle to the grave and treat NYC residents like imbeciles or potential criminals. He is happy to dictate to trained physicians when it comes to treating their own patients and even limit the supply of necessary pain killers in the city’s hospitals.

I am so glad I made the decision to leave New York City for good about three months before Bloomberg took office. The nanny Mayor has managed to totally completely ruin one of the world’s most exciting cities. As they say in the great borough of Brooklyn, ain’t it a shame!