Speaker
John Clements
John’s involvement in the health sector began back in 2016, following the death of his wife from pancreatic cancer.
His first area of involvement was that of palliative care, which he was first exposed to during the latter stages of his wife’s illness. Since that time, he has become involved in a number of different activities in and around the palliative care space, serving on numerous committees and consumer groups with a range of institutions including Safer Care Victoria, Palliative Care Australia, Palliative Care Victoria and a group of palliative care/research bodies based at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).
He has, over time, also branched out into involvement with other institutions covering the areas of medical research, clinical trials and voluntary assisted dying.
His work background was in Information Technology, where he gained vast experience in programming, systems and business analysis and applications testing across an extensive range of industries, applications and platforms. This has proved to be a very useful attribute with regard to his involvement in the health sector.
John is a member of the Jreissati Pancreatic Cancer Centre Community Advisory Panel and has been a member of the Victorian Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board since 2018.
-
My wife:
Was diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer in September 2013.
Experienced an intestinal blockage in July 2015.
Had a gastric bypass in August 2015.
Had her first experience of cancer pain some 10 days later.
Was prescribed Oxycontin for her pain with a starting dose of 10mg morning and evening.
Continued to experience intermittent pain over the next five months.
Had her Oxycontin dosage increased over that time from 10mg morning and evening to 60mg.
Became extremely ill in early February 2016 and was taken to Emergency, where she was diagnosed as having opiate poisoning.
Was then admitted to palliative care and from that point on was only given pain relief via her bloodstream, not orally.
I consider this story to be extremely important for three reasons:
When Jane was in the Emergency department in February 2016, she was visited by a palliative care doctor who asked my wife to tell her story, which she did. On completion, the doctor said that she should never have been prescribed Oxycontin as she’d had a gastric bypass.
(If a patient has either a duodenal blockage or has had a gastric bypass, Oxycontin won’t work properly as the capsules have an enteric coating that is designed to be removed in the duodenum).
My wife kept an intermittent diary during the course of her illness and on reading it a few days after her death, I came across the following comment from April 2016: “I wonder what is so special about me that the Creon does not work anymore?”.
So, I had a bit of a browse and found that Creon capsules also have an enteric coating and therefore have the same limitations as Oxycontin.
This is a massive issue as Creon is designed to replace the enzyme Lipase, which is used to absorb fat and is prescribed to most (around 90%) pancreatic cancer patients.
During the course of my years of being a consumer advisor, I have raised this subject with a number of groups and have only come across one that said “Yes, we know about that.”
As things turned out, not only did they know about the problem but they also had a way of getting round it.
For all of the above reasons, I firmly believe that this is an issue that should be aired at the conference