Grandparent's medications pose danger to children.

[oramar]

Girl, 10, hospitalized after using painkiller patch

[SBarn]

So sad. I pray she has a good outcome.

[leslie :-D]

Girl, 10, hospitalized after using painkiller patch

so, so avoidable.

my prayers for this little girl and her family.

leslie

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Homicide is investigating due to the child's "condition"? Wow.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

unless she is developmentally delayed, 10 is old enough to know that you dont get into things that dont belong to you.....I am sorry this happened, but i fear an over reaction and tightening the prescription process...

[Stcroix, ASN, PhD, RN]

Not to mention the HUGE problem of kids intentionally stealing and taking their parents/grandparents pain- psych meds.

[DeeAngel]

I think parents need to parent their children instead of making access more difficult for those of us who either take the time to parent or don't have children. The parents should have known that the GM took those meds and made sure they were lock and key and the GM should have done so on her on if need be. GM doesn't need to ever seen the kids alone again.

Lousy parenting and supervision.

[handyrn]

I hope they keep writing about this. It would be interesting to see exactly how she got the patches, if it was intentional by someone else or if she decided to experiment, etc. It does strike some interesting questions since the girl was old enough to know better.

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

maybe the girl thought they were stickers?

[steelydanfan]

maybe the girl thought they were stickers?

That was my very first thought as well.

[TDCHIM]

I hope the poor girl is all right eventually. Those patches are extremely powerful. That story made me rush to hug my little boy.

I do have to wonder about a few points in all this. First, why did the girl get into them in the first place? They aren't colorful like stickers, so there isn't much to attract a child's attention. Plus, they come in those pouches you have to open, so it seems unlikely that the girl just saw one out and applied one on a whim. She could have found a used one, I suppose (they're a pain to get rid of - I wish they could just be turned in to the pharmacy for safe disposal!) but they don't really stick much (if at all) when they've been removed. So was she perhaps experimenting with one of Grandma's medicines? That's a terrible thought to have about a 10-year-old, but I have to wonder a little at this point.

I expect a further crackdown on strong painkillers, especially the fentanyl patches. There's a point at which tightening the regulations won't do any good, however, and IMO we've already reached it.

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

Around here teens steal or buy fentanyl patches, dissolve them in warm water and make jello shooters with them, which they sell at the Seven/Eleven for $50 each. We were resuscitating these imbeciles every weekend all summer.