Doctors should prescribe opioid pain medications more frequently. There are unjustified fears that patients will become addicted to them, said Deputy Minister of Health Igor Radziewicz-Winnicki at a press conference in Warsaw.
The meeting entitled We sick and our pain was devoted to insufficient analgesic treatment in cancer patients. The president of the Coalition for Fighting Cancer, Szymon Chrostowski, stated that in as many as three-quarters of cancer patients the pain is not relieved enough. Many patients complain that doctors even refuse to use opioid drugs.
Patients most often hear that cancer must hurt or that you have to learn to live with it. They are even told that there is no suitable doctor to prescribe an opioid drug. It is a scandal that doctors can tell such things – said Chrostowski.
Dorota Makowska, who has been treated for breast cancer since 2005, said that some doctors did not even want to ask the patient if he had any problems. I have suffered for a long time. Only doctors from the hospice who know how to relieve ailments helped me – she added.
Dr. Jarosław Woroń from the University Hospital in Krakow admitted that in Poland there are five times less opioid analgesics used than in Germany. At the same time, we are third in Europe in terms of the consumption of over-the-counter painkillers, mainly paracetamol and the so-called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
However, such measures in the treatment of severe anti-cancer pains are not very effective, emphasized Dorota Kaniewska, who has been suffering from colorectal cancer since 1999. She said that she had to undergo several surgeries, suffered a lot, only the use of opioid painkillers helped her. Unfortunately, only in some centers doctors are willing and able to use them.
Deputy Minister of Health Igor Radziewicz-Winnicki explained that the reimbursement list includes many prescription painkillers, including opioids. A year ago, the use of the so-called pink prescriptions, on which patients could only be prescribed this kind of drugs, which stigmatized the patients.
The fact that opioid painkillers are still too rarely used is due to the persistent reluctance among physicians to prescribe them. The very procedure of their discharge is very simple – emphasized Radziewicz-Winnicki.
He added that these are mainly primary care physicians who do not have sufficient knowledge about the use of these preparations. They fear that the patient may become addicted to these drugs, which is completely unjustified.
He also emphasized that opioidophobia, i.e. the fear of using opioid drugs, is still present in the medical community. The paradox is that doctors are not afraid to prescribe the so-called benzodiazepines, drugs with anxiolytic, sedative and hypnotic properties that actually lead to addiction, added Radziewicz-Winnicki.
He admitted that it was necessary to create a coalition, with the participation of representatives of the medical community, chambers of doctors and patients, that would help break the resistance of doctors against the wider use of opioid analgesics. He also announced that new painkillers will be successively introduced to the reimbursement lists.
Anonymous opinions – collected by the Coalition for Fighting Cancer during meetings with patients in November 2013 in Warsaw and in January 2014 in Łódź – show that 79 per cent. cancer patients complain of pain that is not adequately relieved. 86 percent admitted that their ailments are so strong that they destabilize their private and professional lives. On a scale of 1 to 10 points, most patients reported pain intensity of 7 points.
Dr. Mariola Kosowicz, head of the Department of Psycho-oncology at the Cancer Center, emphasized that chronic pain leads to mental disorders, especially depression. People suffering from chronic diseases, such as cancer, are three to six times more likely to have thoughts of suicide.
Opioids are narcotic painkillers used to relieve severe, chronic ailments related to trauma, surgery and cancer. These include, for example, morphine, codeine, fentanyl and oxycodone. Currently, the term “narcotic” is not used due to inappropriate associations with drugs.
Zbigniew Wojtasiński (PAP)