Regional Reports:
Africa, India, and Sierra Leone
Africa
Read about the exciting things that have been happening in Africa. A recent issue of the Hospice Africa newsletter describes the current situation starting with an historical perspective dating back to the pioneering efforts of Dr. Anne Merriman and others in Hospice Uganda.
http://www.hospiceafrica.or.ug/docs/newsletters/nl_hau_uk_11-08.pdf
.PDF Document (will open in new window)
India
A) From the website of the Mehac Foundation:
Vision
“The Mental Health Action Foundation (Mehac Foundation) is a Not for Profit Organisation that aims to contribute to improved mental health care in India by integrating Psychiatry with Medicine…
The challenge in the developing world is to evolve a culturally and socio-economically appropriate and acceptable system of care that addresses psychosocial issues along with long-term care needs and that is accessible to the majority of those who need it.” Read more about this at the following link.
http://www.mehacindia.com/
B) From The Hindu publication there is an article entitled Taking palliative care to every panchayat by K.P.M. Basheer. This describes the mission to train 150 doctors in each district.
To read this article go to:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2008/12/09/stories/2008120954970500.htm
Sierra Leone imports first shipment of morphine!
The following note is from the Pain and Policy Studies Group, University of Wisconsin and published here with permission
“An article in the September 10, 2007 New York Times by Donald McNeil, Jr. described the inability to relieve severe pain in Sierra Leone because of phobia surrounding opioids leading to lack of opioid availability and access.
http://tinyurl.com/8hhak8
However, efforts by an International Pain Policy Fellow (IPPF) http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/internat/IPPF/index.htm to obtain morphine in Sierra Leone have at last proven successful. Mr. Gabriel Madiye, a 2006 Pain & Policy Studies Group (PPSG) Fellow and his colleagues have been working with the country’s Pharmacy Board and pharmaceutical supplier Macfarlan Smith to procure morphine for hospice patients needlessly suffering from pain due to cancer, AIDS, and other debilitating diseases.
Until very recently, oral morphine was not registered in Sierra Leone, one of the least developed countries in the world. Although affordable and effective for pain relief, morphine and other opioids are often not available or easily accessible in many low- to middle-income countries in the world, including Sierra Leone. Exaggerated fears of addiction and unduly strict drug control are enormous barriers that prevent access to pain-relieving drugs.
Mr. Madiye, founder and executive director of The Shepherd’s Hospice in Freetown, Sierra Leone, has been an International Pain Policy Fellow, which began with a one-week training session with the PPSG at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. For the last two years Mr. Madiye has been working to improve opioid availability in his country with technical assistance from the PPSG. In the spring of this year, he and his colleagues contacted Macfarlan Smith to arrange the sale of morphine to his hospice. The next step was to convince the Sierra Leone Pharmacy Board to approve the necessary importation. A change in government facilitated the necessary cooperation.
In late August 2008, Mr. Madiye was finally notified that the Sierra Leone Pharmacy Board had signed the permit to import morphine and by the first week of October the morphine had arrived to The Shepherd’s Hospice.
This is but one example of the important work being done by PPSG International Pain Policy Fellows with support from the Open Society Institute http://www.soros.org/ in low and middle income countries throughout the world. Additinal general information about the IPPF is available on the PPSG website at www.painpolicy.wisc.edu.”
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