Pain management as human right
Denial of pain relief for palliative care and other essential medical purposes represents a de facto form of torture that affects millions of patients with life-limiting illness worldwide. The severity of the pain experienced by patients denied pain relief can be as great or greater than that of traditional torture techniques, and it can last longer. Although not acting out of malice, health workers and policy-makers restrict access to pain relief for inappropriate reasons such as exaggerated fears of addiction, failure to educate or train physicians in palliative care, arbitrary regulations on morphine-derived substances, government’s failure to submit appropriate estimates of required opioids with the International Narcotics Control Board, and preoccupation with drug control rather than concern for people with pain.
Sometimes these reasons are based on discrimination, as when people with a history of drug addiction are denied pain relief (including for surgical anesthesia) out of fears they will resume dependence on illicit opioids. It is the obligation of governments not to place health providers in situations where they have no real choice but to deny patients relief from severe pain. The alternative to consigning patients with life-limiting illness to such excruciating pain is to remove legal and regulatory obstacles to opioids for medical purposes, to provide them with comprehensive palliative care services that address their full range of medical, psychological, and other needs, and to train providers in the appropriate care of people in severe pain.
News:
IFHHRO & artist Bert Feddema join forces on the issue of pain management as human right
Case study: Volodymyr (Ukraine)
Selected resources:
IFHHRO Position Statement on Access to Adequate Pain Treatment, IFHHRO, 2011 [Spanish] [French]
Fact sheet Palliative Care as a Human Right: A Fact Sheet, Open Society Foundations, 2011 [Russian]
Article Pain Treatment as a Human Right, Dr. Andrea Pace. World Neurology, Vol. 26, No. 3, June 2011
Report IFHHRO Workshop 'Pain treatment as a human right, 20 & 21 January 2011, IFHHRO, 2011
Report Global State of Pain Treatment: Access to Palliative Care as a Human Right, Human Rights Watch, 2011
Report Uncontrolled Pain. Ukraine’s Obligation to Ensure Evidence-Based Palliative Care, Human Rights Watch, 2011
Report Needless Pain: Government Failure to Provide Palliative Care for Children in Kenya, Human Rights Watch, 2010
Report Unbearable Pain. India’s Obligation to Ensure Palliative Care, Human Rights Watch, 2009
Report “Please, do not make us suffer any more…”. Access to Pain Treatment as a Human Right, Human Rights Watch, 2009
Article Access to pain treatment as a human right, Diederik Lohman, Rebecca Schleifer & Joseph Amon, BMC Med, 2010; 8: 8, doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-8-8
More than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners have agreed to end their hunger strike in exchange for concessions by Israel, including a modification to its practice of detention without charge or trial. 
As of June 1st 2012, the IFHHRO International Secretariat in Utrecht, the Netherlands, will be closed. The secretarial work of IFHHRO will continue with less capacity and with volunteers.
Or follow us on
