Thursday, Gov. Tom Wolf met with the Johnstown Tomahawks, medical professionals and law enforcement from Cambria County to discuss new orthopedic and sports medicine prescribing guidelines laid out in March.

“Overall, this is an attempt to balance a need of doctors to balance pain, which patients want, and the need to make sure that they’re not creating a new generation of addicts,” said Gov. Wolf.

Some of the new guidelines include limiting the amount of opioids prescribed to each patient, evaluating acute versus chronic pain management and looking for red flags in patients who may be addicted.

Gov. Wolf said one of the biggest challenges is balancing pain management with safe prescribing practices.

“I had no pain after my procedure for prostate cancer, but I had a prescription for 30 days worth of OxyContin. I didn’t need an aspirin,” said Gov. Wolf.

Dr. Matthew Perry is an emergency medicine physician at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center. He said doctors have to be careful about prescribing opioids, but the risk of addiction follows patients outside the emergency room.

“Anytime there’s any entrance into narcotic use, legal or illegal, it does set the stage for potential abuse. The medical treatment of the overdoses is actually fairly easy when they present to the emergency department, but the sheer number that has been growing over the years is very alarming and very sad,” said Dr. Perry.

Gov. Wolf and Cambria County leaders talked about the challenges in fighting the opioid epidemic, like educating medical professionals, youth and people who suffer injuries about the dangers of opioid abuse and providing rehabilitation for addicts.