Dying Without Morphine

An African Cancer Patient Dying in Unnecessary Pain

"Imagine watching a loved one moaning in pain, curled into a fetal ball, pleading for relief. Then imagine that his or her pain could be relieved by an inexpensive drug, but the drug was unavailable.

Each day, about six million terminal cancer patients around the world suffer that fate because they do not have access to morphine, the gold standard of cancer pain control. The World Health Organization has stated that access to pain treatment, including morphine, is an essential human right.

Untreated cancer pain is a human disaster not unlike famine; its victims are starving for relief. But as the Ugandan experience shows, there are easy-to-implement, cost-effective health care models that could rapidly deploy morphine to cancer patients around the world."

Dying Without Morphine is an important Op-Ed piece from the NY Times (October 1, 2014)

Over 100 years ago, Osler called morphine "God's Own Medicine."  It is cheap and effective, but it has been demonized and is not available around the world to the people who need it most.