According to a new CDC report, life expectancy for Caucasian women has dropped for the first time in recorded history. One metro mother says the report is “valid.”
What’s especially troubling is why people – specifically women – are dying at a younger rate. Many are attributing it to a rise in suicide and ‘unintentional poisonings,’ which include alcohol and drug poisoning.
Jackie Boan is a nurse practitioner in Grain Valley who lost her daughter to the disease of drug addiction five years ago.
“I think probably the medical community was not as vigilant with her as they needed to be and that is a problem in today’s world,” Boan said.
Melissa Solomon, passed away at the age of 41 in June 2011. Her entire family, including her mother, Boan, didn’t find out until that August.
“Her daughter was surfing the web and found a website called "Tributes.com" and came across her mother's death notice on this website. The good news was she didn't suffer, she just went asleep, but she wound up in a hospital room in Kansas City. The nursing home apparently did not send appropriate paperwork with her in order for them to contact any family members and so she was admitted virtually as a Jane Doe and died the same way,” said Boan.
The experience is just one reason Boan is pushing for new laws in Missouri.
“So far I haven't had any luck but I would really like to see a 'next of kin' law get passed in the state of Missouri, because that would force hospitals to call the patient's closest living blood relative,” she said.
Boan said her daughter’s life began to spiral out of control after she injured her back while in nursing school several years ago and was put on powerful prescription medication. She said it’s likely then she went drug shopping from doctor to doctor.
Since Missouri is the only state that doesn’t have any type of prescription monitoring, Boan is pushing hard for changes in the law.
"I went with first call on the 23rd of February down to Jeff City to talk with the senators. The prescription drug monitoring plan is sitting here in Missouri tabled again for the moment. As a health care provider I can tell you this would be huge in helping avert things like what happened to my daughter. Because if some of the doctors had a suspicion that she was after pain medication and knew how many prescriptions she had received over the last few weeks, the outcome for her might have been different,” Boan said.
The "Narcotics Control Act' is currently in committee in both the Missouri House and Senate. If passed, it would be the first prescription monitoring law in Missouri.
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Josh Helmuth can be reached at josh.helmuth@kshb.com
