Nursing the morphine dream

INDIA | The Hindu (OpEd) – 31 July 2013 – Where there is pain, no head can be held high. We used to witness this every day as our teams travelled from door-to-door and from patient-to-patient bringing succour and relief to those facing the challenge of an advancing cancer. It was always about pain! Here was someone crouched in a corner on the floor, there was someone else banging his head against the wall, and yet another being held down by distraught relatives as he thrashed about like a fish on a hook. Small wonder then that as they went about their tasks, our teams began to suffer burnout born out of a sense of helplessness in the face of such great suffering. All of this changed after we got our licence for oral morphine and could now assure our patients that their physical pain would no longer hold them captive. Sadly, there are millions in India today who are not as lucky…read more

An article from Media Watch, compiled and annotated by Barry R. Ashpole (Ontario, Canada). More reports can be found at IPCRC.NET