A close friend of mine died a few years ago of cancer. During the latter stages, the district nurse would come in on a daily basis to administer painkillers. He didn't have a home supply. I honestly don't think my doctor would prescribe these under any circumstances.
My mom, during the last six months of her life, was given enough painkillers for me to open my own drug house. She was prescribed Oxycontin, Hydrocodone, Methadone (incredibly dangerous stuff), Morphine, and Fentanyl. That is simply ridiculous, but it was what was needed to regulate and manage her pain. As her cancer progressed, certain meds proved useless, and our family made the decision with the doctor to discontinue those and replace them with others. So as the Oxy and Vicodin quit working, we tossed them out. Morphine and Methadone proved to be an effective combination. The Methadone came in a liquid suspension that resembled cough syrup. We literally administered 1cc of that (a TINY amount). If you mis-measured even by a small amount, you could easily kill someone. Luckily, we got training to help administer the medications and we have a nurse in the family. But all of these drugs could be obtained from a hospital pharmacy and, frankly, self administered.
The medical care industry in this country is cutting back on oversight and nursing care. You are more and more on your own. We were activists in my mom's care, so we pushed the doctors on medical issues, such as prompting the discontinuing drugs that no longer worked. Most doctors do not do this... they just cumulatively add on more prescriptions, assuming that older ones will run out of refills or expire. But as anyone with an older family member or relative can attest, the end result is often medicine cabinets overfilling with medications, and people taking 8, 10, or even 12 different drugs every day, with little or no periodic comprehensive review. It sounds like Heath was also being handed a new pill everytime he went to a doctor. Same problem.
I just hope more and more people will come to push for major medical reform in this country. Everyone, including Heath, deserves better.