B.C. mom whose two sons overdosed urges doctors to check prescription history
VANCOUVER — Helen Jennens flips through two sets of documents — one for each son who fatally overdosed.
Letters she sent in both cases to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia alleging the careless prescribing of potentially dangerous medications are neatly organized among responses from doctors.
Jennens says the deaths of her sons, Rian Leinweber in August 2011 and Tyler Leinweber in January 2016, could have been prevented if doctors had checked their drug histories on B.C.’s unique real-time database PharmaNet.
The provincewide network links pharmacies and hospitals to a central database that stores information on all dispensed prescriptions. The system is also available to physicians, but doctors say most do not use it.