ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 22, 1996 TAG: 9609230085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Pres
LAURA COOPER is suing the state Department of Health, Gov. Allen, and the Board of Medicine.
A former patient of a pain specialist whose license to practice medicine was revoked has sued to overturn the ruling by the Virginia Board of Medicine.
Laura Cooper filed a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court Friday.
Cooper, a Washington-based lawyer, is a former patient of Dr. William E. Hurwitz.
Hurwitz treated about 220 chronic pain patients throughout the country by prescribing huge doses of narcotics.
On Aug. 10, the state Board of Medicine revoked Hurwitz's license after concluding that the doctor overprescribed narcotics and failed to sufficiently monitor his patients.
Hurwitz can get his license back in as little as three months if he completes 250 hours of continuing medical education and complies with other conditions.
The District of Columbia Board of Medicine, citing the Virginia board's action, suspended Hurwitz's license a week later.
Among the lawsuit's defendants are John Hasty, director of the Virginia Department of Health Professions; the state Board of Medicine; Gov. George Allen; and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Dr. Warren W. Koontz, executive director of the medicine board, said he and board members had not seen the suit.
Hurwitz said the board's decision to revoke his license is hurting his former patients.
``I've heard from patients that when they have succeeded in getting prescriptions from other doctors, pharmacies are refusing to fill them,'' he said. ``And of course, other doctors are rationally intimidated by the action of the Board of Medicine.''
Hurwitz and Cooper said one patient has killed himself because he could not stand the pain he was in.
They provided The Richmond Times-Dispatch with a copy of a letter from the patient, a former Liverpool, N.Y., police officer. ``They suspended my doctor's license, they refused to fill my prescriptions, and they refused to pay for my prescriptions,'' the man wrote. ``There is no other way to take this. They want me dead.''
He wrote that he was killing himself because the medicine boards ``took away the only way I had access to painkillers that brought the level of physical pain down to a level that did not make me want to kill myself to end the suffering.''
Hurwitz and Cooper said the man killed himself Sept. 11.
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