News
February 3, 2012
Kerala, India / Wisconsin, USA — Millions of people all over the world are in needless pain because simple inexpensive medication is denied to them.
In conjunction with World Cancer Day 2012 (4 February 2012), Pallium India, the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC), and the Pain & Policy Studies Group / WHO Collaborating Center at the University of Wisconsin, have released a Morphine Manifesto.
Signed by leading organizations and foundations from around the world, including cancer, pain management, and hospice & palliative care organizations, this Manifesto calls for an end to the unethical practice of promoting access to expensive opioid analgesics without also making available low cost immediate release oral morphine.
Furthermore, it calls upon governments, health care institutions, and the pharmaceutical industry to assure the accessibility of immediate release morphine to patients in need at a cost that the individual and community can afford.
Dr. M.R. Rajagopal, Chairman of Pallium India, and the driving force behind the creation of the Morphine Manifesto, states:
Prolonged unrelieved pain destroys the mind; destroys the body; destroys families. Inexpensive and effective immediate release morphine can relieve most of such pain. We cannot call ourselves a cultured or ethical society if we deprive this relief to those in pain; or worse yet, benefit financially from this suffering by forcing expensive, unaffordable alternatives on them.
Dr. Jim Cleary, Director of the University of Wisconsin Pain & Policy Studies Group, asserts:
The Institute of Medicine’s recent statement that ‘effective pain management is a moral imperative, a professional responsibility, and the duty of people in the healing professions’ applies to the entire world. Access to low-cost immediate release oral morphine would be a great start in bringing effective pain management to the 83% of the world's population with low or non-existent access to opioid analgesics.
Ms. Liliana De Lima, Executive Director of the IAHPC remarks:
We hope that the manifesto will motivate governments to eliminate excessive and unnecessary regulatory requirements which affect access to opioids and to work with the pharmaceutical industry to facilitate the production and distribution of immediate release oral morphine to all patients in need.
Dr. Eric Krakauer of Harvard Medical School, member of the drafting team, adds:
Access to pain relief is a human right. Making immediate release oral morphine accessible by all is a moral imperative.
To read and sign the
Morphine Manifesto click on
The deadline for applications for the IASP Early Career Research Grants is
January 20, 2012! As many as TEN (10) grants of up to US$20,000 each (including
2 funded by the Scan|Design Foundation BY INGER & JENS BRUUN) will support
researchers in the early career stage of pain investigations. Apply now to be
considered for valuable funding that could help you with your research.
Who's Eligible?
These awards are available to IASP members conducting independent research
within six (6) years of their final terminal degree.
How Do I Apply?
For complete award information, eligibility requirements, and application
instructions, visit the IASP website:
www.iasp-pain.org/Grants/EarlyCareer
If you have any questions, please contact IASP at:
IASPdesk@iasp-pain.org
Click here
PAIA MANUAL
Dear SAMA member
The Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) was enforced by the Department of Justice and promulgated in the year 2000. In terms of the Act, all information held on a person is confidential and may not be disclosed to any third party without the written consent of the person whom the information is held on. At the time of promulgation, the Act provided that all entities must declare the information which is available in their businesses in the form of a manual which was to be submitted to the SA Human Rights Committee. In the case of doctors, all those in private practice had to adhere to the regulation.
Correspondence together with a pro forma (
PAIA manual) was circulated to SAMA members during the course of 2003. Subsequently, the submission date for manuals to be submitted was extended to 31 August 2005, then 31 December 2005 and finally 31 December 2011 provided that the practice did not have more than 50 employees or a turnover equal or higher than R5 million per annum (the submission date for those private businesses had lapsed).
We, therefore, wish to remind all SAMA members who had not complied with the regulation to compile an information manual and submit it to the SA Human Rights Committee before or on 31 December 2011.
It may be posted to SA Human Rights Commission, Private Bag 2700, Houghton, 2041 attention: PAIA Manual or email to ckisoon@sahrc.org.za / Tel: 011-877 3600 should you wish to contact them.
Please ensure that a copy of the manual is filed safely for record keeping purposes.
Global Year Against
HEADACHE
Oct 2011 - Oct 2012
International Asssociation for the Study of Pain (IASP)
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Press release
