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Hospice is a booming business that serves 1.6 million people a year in the U.S. But a report in The Washington Post points out that it’s also an industry without much oversight or consequences where end-of-life-care at home could lead to stolen medication — particularly opioids.
Recent studies revealed that hospice care teams aren’t trained properly for drug screening and they are not prepared to deal with pain medication theft. As a result, stories of drug-addicted family members and staff stealing medication abound. In most states, hospice workers don’t have the authority to destroy medicine leaving large amounts of pills that may fall into the hands of someone with an addiction.
While there are no hard data on how many or what kinds of pills are pilfered each year, many states have passed laws authorizing hospice workers to destroy unused drugs. Whether measures like this will work to fight the epidemic remains to be seen.