The anguished brother of a patient who died after mixing a toxic cocktail of drugs said he hopes the Long Island doctor charged with doling out his deadly prescriptions will now “rot in jail.”
“He had a license to kill,” said Glenn Mielinis, whose brother Robert Mielinis was one of the five patients Dr. George Blatti has been accused of killing by prescribing massive amounts of opioids and other medications, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced on Thursday.
Blatti was indicted on five counts of murder in the second degree for allegedly causing the victims to suffer fatal overdoses.
Robert had been a patient of Blatti’s for eight years and died on January 10, 2017, after 11 days of “mixed drug toxicity,” according to the district attorney.
“He had them all in prison with the drugs,” Glenn said. “He was the correction officer with the key, and now it’s his turn to rot in jail.”
According to the DA, insurers repeatedly warned Blattis he was overprescribing to Robert.
Robert was once allegedly prescribed nine times the recommended maximum dose of opioid painkillers.
Blatti allegedly handed Robert a whopping 79 scripts for a total of 10,620 pills over a two and a half year period.
“That’s enough to kill a thousand elephants,” Glenn said.
When Glenn realized that his brother was getting seriously hooked to prescription meds, he stormed into Blatti’s office and begged him to stop.
“I ended up going to the doctor’s office and said, ‘You need to stop giving him medication, this is out of control,’ and he said, ‘I can’t do that.’”
“I said, ‘What are you talking about you can’t do that — you’re the doctor. I understand if you’re highly addicted so wean him down little by little so he’s not getting sick. Wean him off’ and he said, ‘I can’t do that.’”
Glenn told the doctor, “if something happens to my brother we’re going to have a problem.” He choked up recalling what a light his brother was to be around.
He said Robert was a “man’s man,” who loved the outdoors and making people laugh. “He was hilarious. He brightened up the day walking through the door,” Glenn said.
“He loved children, he taught all the children of East Rockaway how to fish. You would see him walking with his fishing pole and traps for the crabs with about 20 kids behind him. We used to call him the Pied Piper of East Rockaway.”
In 2019, Blatti was charged for selling prescriptions for opioids. Two years earlier, the New York State Department of Health’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct interviewed the doctor but no disciplinary action was taken then, the DA said.
He has been barred from practicing medicine since 2019, per a spokesperson for the NYS Department of Health.
“How many more people had to die because of that? It took five lives to stop him,” Glenn said.
“He used to literally cry to me that he didn’t want to be on these medications anymore but he didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help him but he just felt stuck, like he had no choice,” Glenn said.
Glenn couldn’t face the defendant in court today and instead thought about his brother.
“I think my brother was sorry he ever met George Blatti and hopes he rots in prison.”
“Just because he wore a white coat didn’t mean he was above the law.”
