FG pushes morphine for pain in hospitals

Health workers in four federal hospitals begin a year-long project to actively administer morphine for patients in severe or moderate pain from cancer or HIV.
The Pain-Free Hospital Initiative (PFHI), a collaboration with American Cancer Society’s Treat The Pain programme,  will ensure “supply of pain medicines that are now available in hospitals are used appropriately and are accessible to patients who need them,” said Megan O’Brien, manager of ACS global cancer treatment.
The pilot hospitals include teaching hospitals in Ilorin, Enugu, Ibadan and the National Hospital, Abuja.
Nigeria has imported up to 30kg of pulverised morphine in the last three years for use in 27 federal hospitals but health workers reluctance to use morphine to manage pain is high.
“Decades of underuse have resulted in a generation of doctors and nurses who don’t know how to effectively access and treat painusing modern medicines and the World Health Organisation’s simple algorithm,” said O’Brien.
Up to 177,000 people died in moderate or severe pain from cancer or HIV in 2012, said health permanent secretary Linus Awute at the launch of the PFHI in Abuja.
“In the same year, use of narcotic medicines such as morphine was enough to treat only 266 people, representing merely 0.2% coverage of pain treatment need.”
The last of two morphine imports was 19.2kg, enough to treat some 3,000 patients, he added.
“Based on the annual deaths from HIV or cancer, and not including pain from other sources, the need for morphine equivalent opioid analgesics in Nigeria is 1,222kg,” said Vera Ogbechie, director of food and drug services at FMOH, which runs the PFHI.