Many patients who need opioids to help control pain can’t find a family doctor willing to treat them,
OTTAWA — Tens of thousands of Canadians are living with unrelenting pain that can be isolating, demoralizing and deadly, a national summit on pain heard Tuesday.
Yet while access to pain relief is a fundamental human right, wait times for pain care in Canada grow longer by the day, pain doctors and leaders of patient groups say. Many patients who need opioids to help control pain can’t find a family doctor willing to treat them, the one-day gathering in Ottawa heard. Even children are suffering under-treated and poorly managed pain.
Chronic pain “assaults us physically, emotionally and spiritually,” said Lynn Cooper, president of the Canadian Pain Coalition. “Pain can be devastating, debilitating, demoralizing and dehumanizing. And all too frequently, it turns deadly.”