A West Australian coroner has recommended restricting the prescription and use of fentanyl patches after a 54-year-old woman overdosed in hospital from the pain treatment. Marjorie Joy Jarick was given various opioids to treat chronic post-operative pain at Rockingham Kwinana District Hospital in July 2013, but nursing staff didn’t realise she’d been given too much until it was too late. Her doctor over-estimated her level of opioid tolerance, based on calculations of what she’d been exposed to before surgery, Coroner Sarah Linton said in findings released late on Thursday. Medical experts told Ms Jarick’s inquest earlier this year that fentanyl patches were overused for chronic pain treatment in Australia.
