A social worker is advocating for policy changes for physicians and pharmacists that he believes could help reduce addiction and crime rates, but fears his messaging is not being heard.

There are two issues that Henry House wants to see addressed.

He explains that when a physician has concerns that a patient is developing a dependance on a medication they enter into an “informal agreement” where the patient agrees to only get those drugs from that doctor.

He says there is no requirement for a physician to enter that information into the electronic medical record program. Further, because that program is clinic specific, emergency room doctors don’t have access to it.

The second policy involves pharmacists. As it stands, House says a pharmacist has to do a “medication profile” when a prescription is dropped off, but not when it is picked up – even though that could be many days later, meaning there could be important information that is missing.

He believes addressing those “gaps” will go a long way in lowering rates of addiction, overdose deaths, and crime.

House says he has been advocating for the changes for several years.

He has met with NLHS officials, and while health minister Lela Evans set up a meeting with some government officials he says messages directly to Premier Tony Wakeham have gone unanswered.

He also says he has not been granted meetings with the College of Physicians and Surgeons or the College of Pharmacy.

He says that is “frustrating” because the changes are not costly or complicated, and they are standard practices in other parts of the country so he has “baffled” as to why it wouldn’t be done here.

House has been told the rollout of the CorCare program will help address the gaps – but he doesn’t see how if the requirements aren’t there.