Patient care: ‘All public hospitals need pain management clinics’
Society for the Treatment and Study of Pain and Pakistan Society of Anaesthesiologists hold annual conference.
LAHORE:
The government should set up pain management clinics at all public hospitals to improve the treatment of patients in chronic pain or recovering from surgery, said Society for the Treatment and Study of Pain (STSP) President Brig (retired) Dr M Salim on Saturday.
Talking to The Express Tribune at the sidelines of the Pakistan Society of Anaesthesiologists and STSP Annual Conference on Saturday, Dr Salim said that pain management was finally starting to be recognised in Pakistan as a distinct medical specialty. Riphah International University offers an MSc in Pain Medicine, he said.
Dr Salim, who is also president of the International Association of Study of Pain (IASP) in Pakistan and professor of anaesthesiology at the Islamic International Medical College in Rawalpindi, said that pain management could ease all kinds of acute pain including after surgery and chronic pains that were years old.
He said that currently, Mayo Hospital was the only public hospital with a pain clinic in Punjab. “Pain management OPDs should be established in all teaching hospitals of Punjab,” he said. “It wouldn’t cost anything. You would just have to make pain clinics under the anaesthesia department,” he added.
STSP Core Member Dr Shahbaz Hussain, who works in the Anaesthesia Department at Mayo Hospital, said pain management involved more specific targeting than taking painkillers, which affected the whole body.
“In pain management we treat the specific organ where there is pain. If a patient has a pain in the knee we will diagnose it and then do a nerve intervention, which might be done by administering an injection at a certain place in the knee. The result will be instant and even chronic pain can go away in minutes if you diagnose it properly,” he explained.
He said the Mayo Hospital pain clinic had physicians, pharmacists, nurses, psychologists and other allied health professionals. “We use a multidisciplinary approach to patient care,” he said.
He said private sector pain clinics were very expensive. “They charge a patient around Rs15,000 for an injection which actually costs Rs200,” he said. He said cancer patients needed pain management in their final stages. He said morphine was the only effective pain suppressant for terminal cancer patients.
Dr Salman Athar, another core member of the STSP, said the paperwork had been completed to start pain management training through the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) in teaching hospitals. He said doctors who wanted training in pain management should do a Fellowship of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in anaesthesia and then one in pain management.
“In developed countries they have separate specialisation for pain management and the doctors are called algologists. We have anaesthesia departments which are very good and now we should move ahead and work on pain management,” he said.
The two-day conference was attended by anaesthesiologists from across the country who read papers on various aspects of pain management.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 26th, 2012.
The government should set up pain management clinics at all public hospitals to improve the treatment of patients in chronic pain or recovering from surgery, said Society for the Treatment and Study of Pain (STSP) President Brig (retired) Dr M Salim on Saturday.
Talking to The Express Tribune at the sidelines of the Pakistan Society of Anaesthesiologists and STSP Annual Conference on Saturday, Dr Salim said that pain management was finally starting to be recognised in Pakistan as a distinct medical specialty. Riphah International University offers an MSc in Pain Medicine, he said.
Dr Salim, who is also president of the International Association of Study of Pain (IASP) in Pakistan and professor of anaesthesiology at the Islamic International Medical College in Rawalpindi, said that pain management could ease all kinds of acute pain including after surgery and chronic pains that were years old.
He said that currently, Mayo Hospital was the only public hospital with a pain clinic in Punjab. “Pain management OPDs should be established in all teaching hospitals of Punjab,” he said. “It wouldn’t cost anything. You would just have to make pain clinics under the anaesthesia department,” he added.
STSP Core Member Dr Shahbaz Hussain, who works in the Anaesthesia Department at Mayo Hospital, said pain management involved more specific targeting than taking painkillers, which affected the whole body.
“In pain management we treat the specific organ where there is pain. If a patient has a pain in the knee we will diagnose it and then do a nerve intervention, which might be done by administering an injection at a certain place in the knee. The result will be instant and even chronic pain can go away in minutes if you diagnose it properly,” he explained.
He said the Mayo Hospital pain clinic had physicians, pharmacists, nurses, psychologists and other allied health professionals. “We use a multidisciplinary approach to patient care,” he said.
He said private sector pain clinics were very expensive. “They charge a patient around Rs15,000 for an injection which actually costs Rs200,” he said. He said cancer patients needed pain management in their final stages. He said morphine was the only effective pain suppressant for terminal cancer patients.
Dr Salman Athar, another core member of the STSP, said the paperwork had been completed to start pain management training through the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) in teaching hospitals. He said doctors who wanted training in pain management should do a Fellowship of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in anaesthesia and then one in pain management.
“In developed countries they have separate specialisation for pain management and the doctors are called algologists. We have anaesthesia departments which are very good and now we should move ahead and work on pain management,” he said.
The two-day conference was attended by anaesthesiologists from across the country who read papers on various aspects of pain management.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 26th, 2012.