Prince died of an opioid overdose. A tragic and avoidable fate but, even more tragically, one that is becoming increasingly common in the United States. Some people who overdose live on the edge of society–homeless and with no access to good medical care. Prince, by contrast, had several mansions and a number of physicians actively involved in his care, physicians aware of his problem with opiates. In fact, just days before he died, Prince’s airplane had to emergency-land because he experienced symptoms of opioid overdose.
With so many physicians at his disposal and so much evidence his opioid use was spiraling out of control, did Prince die because his physicians were particularly bad at handling his needs?
Sadly, the answer is probably no. Although I have no inside knowledge of Prince’s care, from what I can tell, his physicians are not very different from the ones caring for many people with opioid addiction. Many, if not most, physicians are simply not prepared to offer proper help to patients struggling to control their use of prescription narcotics.
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