World-first National Pain Strategy launched
Sunday October 18, 2009 (EMBARGOED UNTIL 11AM)
The management of pain in Australia is shockingly inadequate and yet it is the
commonest symptom doctors are confronted with every day, internationally renowned
pain specialist Professor Michael Cousins said today (Sunday October 18, 2009).
Professor Cousins today released the initial draft of the world-first National Pain
Strategy which is to be finalised at the National Pain Summit being held in Canberra
on March 11, 2010.
The aim of the strategy is to have the management of pain addressed as part of the
Rudd Government’s national health reforms.
The ground-breaking draft strategy, the result of thousands of hours’ work by more
than 70 pain medicine specialists, other health professionals and consumers is now
open for community and expert input.
Included in the draft strategy’s recommendations are that:
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Chronic pain be recognised as a disease in its own right.
Pain be given a diagnostic code along with other chronic diseases to document
its prevalence, outcomes and costs.
When monitoring patients, pain be included as the fifth vital sign (with blood
pressure, heart rate, temperature and breathing rate).
More effort be made to de-stigmatise pain (similar to the successful campaigns
to de-stigmatise depression).
“Pain is one of the biggest health issues in Australia today – every bit as big as cancer,
AIDS and coronary heart disease,” said Professor Cousins, who is the chair of the
summit steering committee.
The summit, which is being led by the Australian and New Zealand College of
Anaesthetists, Faculty of Pain Medicine, the Australian Pain Society and Chronic Pain
Australia in collaboration with inaugural supporters’ MBF Foundation and the Pain
Management Research Institute, will bring together an unprecedented gathering of
over 200 leading authorities in pain medicine, consumer groups and other health
professionals.
Professor Cousins said chronic pain was the third most costly health problem in
Australia and yet pain management was not on the national health agenda.
“Australia is leading the world in developing a National Pain Strategy,” Professor
Cousins said, adding that there was a worldwide move by bodies such as the World
Health Organization to improve treatment of pain.
“Even an apparently simple problem such as acute pain after surgery or trauma is not
satisfactorily relieved in over 50% of patients,” said Professor Cousins. “In patients
with cancer pain, again, 50% do not obtain adequate relief.
“The situation is much worse for the one in five Australians who suffer chronic pain,
such as back pain or persisting pain after surgery or injury. Less than 10% of the 3
million people in this group gain access to effective treatment costing the economy
over $34 billion each year.
“These are shocking statistics because severe pain destroys all aspects of individual
and family activities.”
Chronic pain – that is, constant daily pain for a period of three months or more – costs
the economy an estimated $34.4 billion per annum or $10,847 per person affected,
according to the MBF Foundation report “The High Price of Pain” conducted by
Access Economics.
The report also found that more than 36.5 million working days were lost each year
due to chronic pain, costing the economy and employers $11.7 billion annually in
productivity losses.
The chair of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and MBF
Foundation steering committee, Dr Christine Bennett, said Australia was entering a
historic era of reform in health.
“The redesigned health system will need to meet emerging challenges with a greater
emphasis on preventative health and more effective management of chronic diseases
such as pain,” Dr Bennett said.
“The scale, impact and cost of chronic pain is so alarming that it warrants a coordinated, national approach to address this major health issue,” Dr Bennett added.
“The National Pain Strategy, which draws on the expertise of a broad base of
stakeholders, outlines a blueprint for its effective management and is ideally timed to
be heard by policy makers.”
The strategy recommends that chronic pain be recognised as disease in its own right.
“The concept of pain as a disease is a new one but it has been adopted by European
members of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) who have
made recommendations to the European parliament that chronic pain be recognised as
a disease,” Professor Cousins said.
The strategy also recommends that pain be recognised as the fifth vital sign following
the lead of the US.
“All patients in hospital should be asked what level of pain they are experiencing on a
scale of 0 to 10,” Professor Cousins said.
“In the same way that we won’t know if a patient has a fever if we don’t take their
temperature, if we don’t document their pain, it won’t be treated and we won’t be able
to see if their pain is improving.”
The strategy also seeks to de-stigmatise pain.
“Because pain often shows no physical signs, people – including health professionals
– will often not believe sufferers are in pain which is one of the reasons they are at
such high risk of depression, anxiety, social isolation and relationship breakdown,”
said the President of Chronic Pain Australia, Coralie Wales.
President of the Australian Pain Society, Professor Stephen Gibson added, “Expert
consensus and a growing body of research says that best practice pain management
requires coordinated interdisciplinary assessment and management involving
physical, psychological and environmental care.”
“Chronic pain can’t simply be fixed by taking a pill,” Professor Gibson said. “Indeed
pain medication alone works in a minority of patients with chronic pain.”
The Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine, Dr Penelope Briscoe said: “Australia was
the first country in the world to bring five medical specialties together to develop a
specialist qualification in pain medicine and is therefore in a strong position to be a
global leader in having pain recognised by Government as being worthy of planning
and funding.”
The draft National Pain Strategy can be found at www.painsummit.org.au
To speak to Professor Cousins please contact National Pain Summit media
manager Clea Hincks on 0418 583 276
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