A Victorian coroner’s call to stamp out prescription shopping has the support of a Bendigo woman whose brother died after overdosing on prescription drugs. Coroner John Olle said the problem of people addicted to prescription drugs visiting different doctors and chemists to have multiple drug scripts filled could be resolved by establishing a central database.Yesterday Mr Olle urged the state government to fix the problem within a year and not wait for the federal government to implement a similar program.The Coroner’s Court is investigating seven prescription-related deaths, including the death of Bendigo man Shane Hassett.Mr Hassett, 29, died after overdosing on prescription drugs just before Christmas last year, leaving a wife and six-month-old baby. His sister Narelle Hassett yesterday welcomed the recommendation and said that she was glad someone had seen it for what it is.“It’s really good to hear, I just wish that something had happened sooner,” she said.“It might not immediately save someone’s live but it could eventually.”Mr Olle made the recommendation before an inquest into the death of a 24-year-old Melbourne man who visited 19 different doctors and 32 pharmacies in the three years leading up to his death.James, whose surname has been suppressed, died in October 2009 after overdosing on prescribed morphine and diazepam.Mr Olle said a normal day for James would involve prescription shopping for several hours in the morning and afternoon, attending work, and consuming large amounts of drugs in the evening.“These deaths will continue unabated if Victoria’s prescription monitoring practices are not changed,” Mr Olle told yesterday’s hearing.He said doctors and pharmacists were unwittingly “playing Russian roulette with people’s lives”.Mr Olle likened the present system to “Cadel Evans going into the second last stage of the Tour blindfolded”.Seven recommendations for a real-time prescription monitoring system have been made by Victorian coroners in the past 10 years.Mr Olle said a real-time prescription monitoring program would gather information on medications as drugs were prescribed or dispensed.He said that information would then be stored in a central electronic database for prescribers or dispensers to determine whether someone was trying to get more medication than needed.