[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 102 (Tuesday, June 19, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H5230]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             OPIOID CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Marshall) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the opioid crisis. 
Opioid addiction is sweeping the Nation. It is an epidemic that knows 
no race, gender, income, or marital status, and certainly no political 
party.
  As we continue to work together here in Washington to combat that 
crisis, I met with the physicians in Hutchinson, Kansas, who have taken 
responsibility and ownership of this issue. They have developed their 
own scientific and compassionate approach to curb addiction in their 
community.
  The Hutchinson Clinic has created an office-wide task force, working 
with nurses, pharmacists, physicians, and social workers, that outlines 
steps and procedures to reduce the number of narcotics prescribed in 
their medical practice.
  When I met with the staff and physicians yesterday, they explained 
that these new steps will not only reduce the number of people 
unnecessarily exposed to narcotics, but identify patients at risk for 
addiction. They will use clinical-wide protocols and best practices, 
which will eliminate doctors shopping for narcotics and manage chronic 
pain and acute pain more uniformly.
  I was heartened to hear the success stories of many of their patients 
being fully removed from narcotic prescriptions after years of narcotic 
use. They have carefully tried to sit down with all of their patients 
on chronic narcotics, and, in many cases, they uncovered some type of 
an underlying depression or psychosomatic issue that could be resolved 
with counseling and other medications. In some instances, they found 
out that the patient was not taking the narcotics but, rather, a family 
member was selling them.
  In either case, they are trying to use a compassionate approach to 
deal with this growing problem. This is a great prevention and 
awareness approach. As a physician of 30 years, we must make sure that 
prescribers understand the risks involved with these highly addictive 
drugs and minimize addiction.
  While we continue to look at solutions here in Washington, I am proud 
that physicians, nurses, and pharmacists in Kansas are also finding 
solutions by looking in the mirror and recognizing there are steps that 
communities, physicians, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists 
working together can take to prevent addiction before it ever starts.
  This month, as the House continues approaching dozens of bills that 
work on this epidemic from every angle, I want to take time to applaud 
the Hutchinson Clinic--the physicians, the nurses, the pharmacists, the 
social workers, and their staff--for the action that they are taking in 
implementing solutions that are working, for those closest to the 
problem will have the best solutions.

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