When it comes to taking opioids for the first time, it is not surprising that this frequently occurs after having surgery.
Opioids have become the go-to class of medications for controlling pain and after surgery, many patients require drugs to help deal with pain as they recover from a procedure. This has been documented in a major report by Health Quality Ontario released in 2017 – showing that surgeries are second only to dentists’ offices for the percentage of opioids prescribed to patients who had never used opioids before.
Now, 47 hospitals in Ontario who are part of the Ontario Surgical Quality Improvement Network have launched a campaign to reduce the quantity of opioids that surgical teams prescribe after surgery. These hospitals are responsible for almost 80% of the surgical operations that take place in the province annually.