Treat the Pain's Approach

American Cancer Society's TreatThePain.org has an outstanding approach towards resolution of the issue.

Here is an excerpt of their process (click the above link for more):

"More than 3.2 billion people worldwide lack access to adequate pain relief even though morphine, the most effective treatment for severe pain, is safe, effective, plentiful, inexpensive, and easy-to-use.

Legal and regulatory restrictions, cultural misperceptions about pain, inadequate training of healthcare providers, a poorly functioning market, generally weak health systems, and concern about diversion, addiction, and abuse create a web of barriers that force millions of people to live and die with treatable pain.

Access to pain treatment is particularly limited in low and middle-income countries where approximately 70% of cancer deaths and 99% of HIV deaths in the world occur, but just 7% of the opioid analgesics are consumed.

The problem can be addressed through several approaches, including a human rights focus, a policy focus, and a training focus.

Our preferred approach: mechanism of access:

We prefer to address the problem using a mechanism of access approach. Together with our partners, we've identified an 8-step framework to group challenges and interventions, called the Morphine Framework. It's a little hard to read here, so you can download a more detailed description of the framework here, or look at our recent article in Lancet Oncology, which describes the framework. (12)