NOS News•today, 11:10
More than a million Dutch people have been taking addictive sleeping pills and tranquilizers for far too long. Although the general practitioner guideline prescribes that medications from the benzodiazepine group should be used a maximum of ten times may be taken, there are 125,000 patients who have been taking them for more than a year.
Another 272,100 people take them for more than eight months and more than 400,000 people do so for more than four months, writes Trouw. Investigative journalists from Investico first requested the figures from the Pharmaceutical Key Figures Foundation, which keeps track of which medicines pharmacies dispense.
“The nasty thing is that they work really well in the beginning,” explains Bijou van der Borst of Investico. “If someone comes to the doctor in mourning and has not slept for a week, you can quickly fall asleep with such a pill. It also dampens anxiety very well.”
Severe side effects
Problems arise with longer use. Because the effect decreases, addiction lurks. Withdrawal is particularly difficult due to severe side effects and must therefore be intensively supervised by a doctor. According to Investico and Trouw, this seems to be the reason why repeat prescriptions are still prescribed.
Van der Borst: “The rules are that you can only prescribe five to ten tablets and assistants cannot write repeat prescriptions. But it does happen, you can see that in the figures.”
“GPs are of course of good will. They see that these drugs have many side effects, but it is difficult for them to find the time to help with the proper taper. A doctor really needs to speak to someone every week to talk them through it. That it will be tough, but that it will be worth it.”
Need good help
Because continuing to swallow also has disadvantages. Users are dazed, may become depressed and have difficulty concentrating. There is also a greater risk of falls and all the associated complaints among the elderly.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health therefore told Trouw that long-term use is undesirable. Investigative journalist Van der Borst hopes that these new figures about long-term users will bring change. “At first the story was ‘we don’t know how many long-term users there are’, so it was easy not to do anything about it. But now that we know this, it is important that good help is available for these people to reduce their use.”
