Every day, patients around the world wake up from surgery in unnecessary pain. Despite safe and affordable treatments, access and awareness remain critically low.
Imagine waking up in recovery. You have unbearable searing pain across your abdomen – making it very difficult to breathe and almost impossible to move. The last thing you remember is being told you need emergency surgery to deal with a burst appendix. You repeatedly tell the staff that you are in pain, but nothing seems to happen.
Imagine then how you’d feel if you knew there was an effective treatment available in the hospital – it just wasn’t being used.
Sadly, this scenario and others like it are all too common.
We know that across the world, acute pain is frequently under-recognised and undertreated, even though there are effective and affordable treatments. We know that as well as affecting the individual physiologically and psychologically, untreated pain has a wide-reaching social and economic impact. And things are highly likely to get worse. It is estimated that an additional 143 million operations per year are needed to address the current surgical need in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
At the same time, 80% of the world’s population, also in LMICs, lack access to opioid medications. In contrast to chronic pain management, where there is little evidence to support their use, opioids are very effective at treating acute pain. However, many practitioners in LMICs remain afraid of using these medications in acute pain management.
Despite these extraordinary figures, awareness of these issues amongst healthcare workers, managers and wider society remains low, and is compounded by a lack of education in pain management. As a result, the treatment of acute pain is neither prioritised nor adequately funded.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Imagine that you could help more patients wake up from life-saving surgery feeling comfortable and reassured.
Make this a reality by:
- Downloading the WFSA Acute Pain Management advocacy briefing document
- Sharing the document and raising awareness with colleagues, managers and the wider public.
- Getting involved in healthcare education through dedicated education programs like the Essential Pain Management course.
- Engaging with healthcare leaders, using our template letter, to:
- Improve appropriate access to opioid medication. Ensure that analgesic medicines on the WHO’s Essential Medicines List are available. Prioritise pain management in national health planning.
- Increase investment in pain management services and training.
Article by the WFSA Pain Management Committee.
