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Pain Management 2019 & Internal Medicine 2019
International Journal of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine
ISSN: 2471-982X
Page 78
JOINT EVENT
7
th
Edition of International Conference on
Pain Management
8
th
Edition of International Conference on
Internal Medicine &
Patient Care
&
March 25-26, 2019
Rome, Italy
Int J Anesth Pain Med 2019, Volume 5
DOI: 10.21767/2471-982X-C1-006
Pain relief and palliative care is a human right
Michel Daher
University of Balamand, Lebanon
F
or centuries, medical and surgical treatment has
emphasized saving the life of the patient rather than
ameliorating the patient’s pain, particularly when there
were few options for the latter. Today at the dawn of
the 21st century, the best available evidence indicates
a major gap between an increasingly understanding of
the pathophysiology of pain and widespread inadequacy
of its treatment. Epidemiologic evidence has proven
that chronic pain is a widespread public health issue.
Studies of cancer patients’ pain control consistently
reveal that up to half of patients receive inadequate
analgesia and 30% do not receive appropriate drugs for
their pain. Pain clinicians advocate a paradigmshift in the
medical professions’ perspective on pain management,
from simply good practice to an imperative founded on
patient rights. There is a need to promote policies which
create conditions where human beings can bear even
incurable illnesses and death in a dignified manner. This
must help health professionals or lay groups to initiate a
powerful agenda to reform local statutes. The essential
components of such legislation are: reasonable pain
management is a right, doctors have aduty to listen toand
reasonably respond to a patient’s report of pain, provision
of necessary pain relief is immune from potential legal
liability, doctors who are not able or willing to ensure
adequate analgesia must refer to a colleague who has
this expertise, pain management must be a compulsory
component of continuing medical education. For too
long, pain and its management have been prisoners
of myth, irrationality, ignorance, and cultural bias. One
response to the worldwide under treatment of pain has
been to promote the concept that pain relief is a public
health issue of such critical importance as to constitute
an international imperative and fundamental human right.
mndaher@inco.com.lb