[Abuse--of hospital services too]

A 75 year-old man with a well known opioid abuse is described. Within the last 10 years the patient had 161 acute admissions to hospital--in total 942 in-hospital days. The diagnoses were either angina pectoris, low back pain or migraine. With time, the patient had become very skilled in mimicking these three diseases, knowing all subjective and objective signs even better than most of his doctors. In connection with all admissions he received the opioids he wanted. Nevertheless, he was astonished that it was so easy to fool the doctors. It is recommended that the patients' own doctor should be the coordinator and the only person responsible for prescription of opioids to these patients. In case of admissions to hospital, this should only be possible to a few selected departments who know the patient.