By BROOKLYN BROWN
One Feather Reporter
Our community is plagued by the opioid crisis. This is not news. We all know. We’ve seen young people dying on the street. Kids. Kids we used to know. Kids we used to coach, teach or raise. Kids we used to play with or go to after school with. Kids we looked at with promise and expectation. Now we look on as an EMT pumps their chest on the side of the road. Now we read their obituaries.
Needles scatter our grocery store parking lots and our children’s play areas. We post pictures on Facebook to alert each other. We walk through our community like we’re walking through a battlefield full of landmines.
Various tribal entities, including the Cherokee Indian Police Department, have made great strides in eliminating the drugs poisoning the veins of our community. They do all they can, but there is a more insidious monster on the outskirts of our community. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Doctors.
There are, of course, good doctors. We have incredible doctors and nurses who help those with substance use disorders, who continue to treat them with care, even when we leave them because we’ve had enough.
But there are bad doctors. Evil doctors. Doctors who prey on our community because they know they can. Doctors who give our people inhumanely high scripts, leaving us to detox our sick in our own hospital. Doctors who take an oath to prevent disease but are fueling a deep sickness in our community. They are angels of death, and they are killing our people.
We have a police department that is dedicated and unafraid to battle this sickness. We have people with substance use disorders who are fighting for their life. People in recovery who are advocating for our community. Organizations dedicated to rehabilitation and behavioral treatment. Social workers who face the consequences and aftermath of addiction daily. We need to do our part in recognizing the monsters in the shadows, facing them head-on and refusing to let them continue to kill our people under the guise of medicine.
We know good medicine and we know bad medicine. This is bad medicine.
If you know of malpractice, keep a record, and file a complaint. You can file anonymously with the North Carolina Medical Board or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
