THE Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) has made a plea to governments, health workers and support organisations to tackle the persistent challenge of deaths caused by intentional and unintentional drug overdose.
It comes after the release of Pennington Institute's Annual Overdose Report, which found that there were 544 drug-induced unintentional deaths in Australia in 2021.
Other findings included the fact that two-thirds of all unintentional drug-induced deaths involved two or more drug types, and that 38% of the drugs involved in those deaths were anti-depressants.
PSA National President Dr Fei Sim urged the industry to "expand the way we assess risk" and have meaningful conversations with at-risk people.
"Some drug-drug combinations dramatically increase risk of unintentional drug-related death or hospitalisation, as this data tragically shows," she said.
"Real Time Prescription Monitoring is now available and must be used...to have non-judgemental conversations with people about the potential risks associated with medicines, and particularly when multiple medicines are being used at the same time."
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