The Pain Relief Network

Jan 9, 2008
By: Roxana Hegeman
The Associated Press

HAYSVILLE – A candle for St. Jude, the saint of hopeless situations, burned next to a pile of petitions signed by patients Tuesday at the clinic where physician Stephen Schneider and his nurse wife, Linda, practiced medicine before he was charged with illegally prescribing drugs.

The Schneiders remain jailed after being arrested last month on a 34-count federal indictment. Now family members and patients are fighting to keep the clinic open, even as the Kansas Board of Healing Arts plans to have an emergency hearing next week on whether to suspend the doctor's medical license.

Joining in the Schneiders' fight is a national group calling itself the Pain Relief Network.

Hanging in the patient waiting lobby was a handmade sign aimed at Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway, the lead prosecutor in the federal case. It read: "Life With Dignity, Liberty or Death, Don't Tread On Me Tanya."

Beneath the sign, on a table holding the St. Jude candle, were two petitions. One, for nonpatients, called for the Board of Healing Arts to allow the clinic to stay open. The other, for patients, included the same plea, along with a commitment to join a civil lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Controlled Substances Act.

The lobby was packed Tuesday with patients, some of whom were waiting for appointments with the physician assistants, and others who had come to sign the petition.

Another signing session was planned for today.

Connie Bass, a 56-year-old patient suffering from a connective tissue disease, signed the petition. She said Schneider gave her medication that helps her cope with chronic pain.

"I am going to stay and fight for him because he has for me," Bass said.

Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Pain Relief Network, said if the Board of Healing Arts rules next Tuesday to suspend Schneider's license, the clinic will be forced to close because the physician assistants now writing prescriptions are doing so under the auspices of working for a clinic owned by a licensed physician.

Other doctors who once practiced at the clinic have been run off by fears of federal prosecution, she said.

"Right now we are calling on the medical board to refrain from joining in this attack on this clinic. This clinic has been hobbled by the Justice Department. These patients are living in mortal fear," Reynolds said.

The Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday, saying it is reserving its arguments for the criminal trial.

The Schneiders are not charged with killing any patients. But federal prosecutors have linked them to the overdose deaths of 56 patients who obtained pain killers at the clinic. The indictment alleged they are directly responsible for four of those deaths.

Kelli Stevens, litigation counsel for the Board of Healing Arts, said she is seeking to have Schneider's license suspended until the case is resolved.

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/story/276090.html