Two doctors issued 101 prescriptions for controlled psychotropics to pregnant women; authorities prepare lawsuit for “ant theft” of fentanyl, ephedrine and phenobarbital.
Adriana G. went to the public health services of Baja California when she was 38 weeks pregnant. The doctor prescribed five boxes of fentanyl to be applied intravenously for 30 days.
Cynthia P. had her dose repeated. On October 3, 2019, she left the office with her five boxes of fentanyl and the instruction to inject the substance for a month. In her case, the doctor did not write down the diagnosis.
At 37 weeks pregnant, Giselle del Rosario R. had to apply a 2.5 mg vial of fentanyl every 24 hours. The prescription also said that she could go to the pharmacy for five boxes.
Baja Californians Nayeli G. and Myriam L. went separately to have an abortion. At the end of their procedures, the doctor noted that they each had to administer five boxes of fentanyl for a month.
All prescriptions have the name, address of the patient and CURP, as well as the official logos of the Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris).
Although the prescriptions appear to have been written in accordance with the regulations, several doctors claim that these types of prescriptions are at least “atypical” because fentanyl is not usually prescribed during pregnancy.
The 101 prescriptions
Health authorities in Baja California detected hundreds of prescriptions for fentanyl, ephedrine and phenobarbital, some of the drug precursors most coveted by drug cartels.
According to a voluminous file to which MILENIO had access, only two doctors from the entity issued 101 prescriptions for these psychotropic substances between 2019 and 2021. Of these, 72 were issued by Dr. Luz Elena Aburto and 29 by Dr. Alfonso Romo. . All were delivered by the pharmaceutical chemist Iván Velasco.
Most of the prescriptions were filled at the Tijuana Maternal and Child Hospital pharmacy, mainly to pregnant women, those who had gone into labor, or women who came for an abortion.
The finding is just the tip of the iceberg of a government investigation into “an ant robbery” of controlled medicines that occurred during the last administration. The inquiries point to the former local Health Secretary, Alonso Pérez Rico, and/or whoever is responsible for this “fever” for prescribing psychotropics.
The formal complaint will be filed with the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), but not without first informing the federal Ministry of Health. Baja California officials will request that the role of the network of women who freely acquired those amounts of fentanyl, ephedrine and phenobarbital be investigated.
“The amounts supplied are disproportionate for a single person,” they warned.
Of the 101 prescriptions that this newspaper has, 52 are for midazolam, a drug that is used prior to surgical interventions; It serves to relieve anxiety and prevent any memory of the event.
In the United States it is given to those sentenced to death, as it produces unconsciousness before administering other drugs to stop breathing and paralyze the heart.
Another 22 are ketamine, which is also used to induce or maintain anesthesia. This substance is capable of producing an enormous number of effects ranging from mild perceptual distortions to very intense hallucinations.
Ten more are fentanyl, the drug in fashion among drug cartels due to its low production cost and high sales in the United States. With a kilo of fentanyl, a million doses can be produced, which in the US market are sold for up to 20 million dollars.
“Atypical” recipes
Doctors, nurses and pharmaceutical chemists, consulted by MILENIO, wonderful that those prescriptions are “extraordinary”, on account that instead of assuaging, they harm the immune device of the mom and the kid.
Dr. Clara Méndez, with 28 years of hard work on the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) and who has participated in loads of labors, indicated that fentanyl “can’t be supplied to a pregnant female.”
When asked about the recipes for Adriana G., Cynthia P., Giselle del Rosario R., Nayeli G. And Myriam L., the physician mentioned that even the quantity is scandalous, because 5 bottles are used for an entire running room that has steady operations .
“No one may want to write a prescription to offer a lady intravenous fentanyl day by day for 30 days, or even less so even as they’re lactating, it’s far illogical. The life of the child and the mother is located at danger, similarly to the fact that it is able to have critical side outcomes. They have nothing to do with a diagnosis or treatment. It is defective management,” she commented.
“In this example, now not simplest is the prescribing medical physician accountable, but additionally the individual that provides the drugs to the drugstore, who need to have a criterion of what is subscribed to.”
Méndez delivered that “these prescriptions do no longer seem like made via a health practitioner who is therapeutically prescribing a treatment. They haven’t any healing indication, this is the taking based mostly on its mechanism of motion, functioning within the body, its excretion and its impact for the subscription of the dose”.
The IMSS chemical biologist, Eduardo Martínez, who has also participated in hard work, agreed that the quantities provided correspond to “doses for numerous days of operations inside the operating room and now not for a single affected person.”
In addition, he perplexed the ethics of each the doctors who deliver the doses, and those in charge of the pharmacies, due to the fact “they want to apprehend and notice that these doses aren’t recommended, nor do they coincide with the ailments of the beneficiaries.”
The former head of nurses on the IMSS, María Cervantes, commented on a dose of medication given to a baby less than days antique. The infant turned into treated on the Baja California Medical Specialties Hospital.
“This prescription does not assure the properly-being or the health of the maternal-fetal binomial,” she said.
And she defined that the 25 mg of phenobarbital that might be implemented to the new child for 30 days “does not keep in thoughts the most inexperienced analgesic techniques either.” https://www.Milenio.Com/policia/baja-california-detectan-robo-hormiga-fentanilo-clinicas
“This case and masses of others represent an inadequate approach to pain that may purpose clinical headaches, prolonged health center remains and unnecessary suffering. But in no way with those doses and with the ones portions”, commented Cervantes.
Also in the non-public quarter
Just as those prescriptions were issued within the public location with the aid of Dr. Aburto, in the non-public area similarly they issued dozens of prescriptions signed via Dr. Alfonso Romo Zúñiga, which had been introduced on the Tijuana Maternal and Child Hospital with the resource of the chemical drug biologist Iván Velasco Neighborhoods.
Like the only dated November five, 2019 for Atlín M., who received a box with a hundred ampoules of 50 mg ephedrine to be achieved intravenously for 25 days because of a cesarean section.
In current years, fentanyl has grow to be the drug cartels’ favored precursor drug, as handiest a small dose is 50 times stronger than heroin and as much as one hundred instances stronger than morphine.
It may be given through injection, thru a patch positioned on the character’s skin, or with the aid of mouth thru tablets.
Just in December of ultimate yr, the Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, discovered an increase of 525 percent as compared to the primary three years of the preceding government, in the seizure of fentanyl inside the us of a.
He indicated that inside the first three years of the six-12 months time period, three,497 pounds of fentanyl have been seized, even as noting that the interceptions of this drug have advanced in factor because of the reality “consumption has modified, as has production global.”
“[Criminal organizations] have lengthy long past for the manufacturing and intake of medicine that are more deadly, but additionally much less complicated to make and at a fee that allows them extra profits,” he said.