By Tara Cosoleto, AAP
A 16-year-old boy from Ferntree Gully had been “shopping” for pain medication from 70 doctors in the year before he died from a drug overdose, a Victorian coroner has been told.
The boy, known under the pseudonym LI, obtained three scripts for opioids from three doctors on the day before his death.
He then went to three pharmacies and had 60 tablets of pain medication dispensed to him.
Sometime on the night of 28 January 2019, LI died from a drug overdose in his own bed, with his grandmother finding his body the next morning.
A four-day inquest started on Tuesday 12 March, with Coroner Ingrid Giles to investigate the cause and circumstances surrounding his death.
She was told LI visited 70 different doctors in 2018 and managed to obtain 64 prescriptions from 31 practitioners.
LI presented as a calm and polite patient and his young age seemed to deter doctors from questions of prescription shopping, counsel assisting Anna Martin said.
The 16-year-old was also admitted to hospital “many times” between 2015 and 2019 for drug issues and self-harm including swallowing batteries and needles, Ms Martin said.
LI was living with his grandmother for the last 18 months of his life under a child protection family reunification order.
The grandmother told the court the times she brought LI to the doctor over pain complaints, they refused her request to stay in the room on privacy grounds.
She said her family tried to seek help for LI but the appropriate care was not available to him.
“He needed things right away and continuity and consistency, not long term plans about where he’s going to work when he’s not even at school,” she said.
LI’s grandmother believed his overdose was accidental as he had been happy and excited in the days before his death because he was about to start at a new school.
LI’s father agreed, also telling the court he “100 per cent” believed his son’s death was an accident.
His father told the court he thought his son abused prescription medication as a way to seek attention, numb the pain he couldn’t define, and to be high and “fly along”.
The man said LI had been a young gentleman, with good manners and a big heart.
“He was a beautiful, good boy – he just got lost,” LI’s father said.
The inquest continues.
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