Nurse Katie Howman visited more than 30 doctors to feed addiction before fatal overdose

KATIE Howman was a happily married nurse and mother with everything to live for, until a nasty habit cut her time short.

Katie saw 30 doctors before fatal overdose

A DRUG-ADDICTED Queensland nurse has become the human face to the potentially deadly habit of doctor shopping.

Katie Lee Howman was a “happily married young mother of two” but beyond the happy facade the 30-year-old was addicted to opiates.

Her addiction was fuelled by her secretive trips to dozens of different doctors in the wider Toowoomba area — as many as 30 different doctors and numerous pharmacies — and the “sad reality” she was capable of repeatedly lying to those around her.

Mrs Howman was found by her husband Heath lying in the bathroom of their Toowoomba home on December 21, 2013. Next to her lay a syringe and a needle.

“I noticed the bathroom door was locked, so I went and got a bread knife to open the door and I found Katie lying on the floor. Her feet were blue and there was a syringe next to her body,” Mr Howman told an inquest into his wife’s death.

Mrs Howman had previously overdosed at work on her first day back from maternity leave in 2010, a colleague finding her unconscious in the toilet of the critical care ward.

On that occasion she was able to be resuscitated. But she wasn’t as lucky the second time.

In his evidence, Mr Howman said in the weeks before her death he was suspicious she was using again and confronted her.

“I asked her if she was injecting anything and she swore to me she was not, but she still did not admit that she had a problem,” the Sunshine Coast Daily reported.

In her findings, Coroner Christine Clements said Mrs Howman most probably got the drug Fentanyl from Toowoomba Base Hospital where she worked as a registered nurse.

The autopsy report revealed she had long been addicted to opiates, although it was Fentanyl that eventually killed her.

Katie Howman died from a drug overdose on December 21, 2013.

The Coroner raised the possibility Mrs Howman might not have been aware of how potent the drug could be.

Despite that the post-mortem showed there was considerable evidence her opioid problem had been building momentum for years.

“The pathologist who performed the autopsy concluded Katie was an intravenous drug

abuser. This was consistent with the evidence of doctor shopping behaviour to source

opioids.”

The lengths she went to get the drugs was extraordinary, but only become brutally clear once she had died.

“The tragedy is that there was an undeniable record of Katie’s growing dependency and reckless behaviour in accessing prescriptions for opioids. She was doctor shopping within the wider Toowoomba area and beyond, sourcing oxycodone as well as tramadol.”

Her pattern was simple but devastatingly effective.

She would visit each doctor for only a short amount of time before moving onto another doctor. While the information was recorded by Medicare, and was accessible by the doctors, only one became suspicious.

They then discovered the Queensland Drugs of Dependency Unit had raised concerns about her, and the doctor tried to wean her off the drugs.

But she was already in the grip of addiction, that ultimately led to the overdose just days away from Christmas 2013.

Coroner Clements said there were systems in place to try and stop the abuse from happening, however there were major flaws which meant “undoubtedly a huge human and fiscal cost in the way the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is currently being misused ... To source drugs.”

“The deficiency in the existing information systems is that they are reliant on a doctor

or pharmacist forming a suspicion prompting a request for information, and, the

information is not available in real time.”

Coroner Clements recommended urgent government changes to allow real-time access to a patient’s medical history.

Earlier this year Mrs Howman’s mother Julie Feldhahn said she wanted to see real time reporting of doctor shopping to doctors and pharmacists — which she thought could have saved her daughter’s life.

“I just feel sad that with the drug testing, they have changed that but it was not in time to save my daughter, ” the Toowoomba Chronicle reported.

Mr Howman told the inquest his wife was the best partner anyone could wish for.

She was a loving wife and the best partner anyone could wish for.

“Unfortunately, she never let on to anyone about her own turmoil.

“I only hope the inquest will help others who are in a similar predicament to open up and ask for help,” the Chronicle reported.

Originally published as Nurse Katie Howman visited more than 30 doctors to feed addiction before fatal overdose