FNQ’S PAIN BARRIER
Only 15 patients prescribed medicinal cannabis in 18 months
JUST 15 Far Northern people have been given legal access to medicinal cannabis to ease their pain in the past 18 months.
But patients say it has improved their quality of life.
ONE of the first patients in the Far North to legally use medicinal cannabis says the drug has eased the pain of his terminal cancer, describing it as a life-changer.
Colin Ernest was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour about four years ago.
The Kewarra Beach resident suffers from chronic pain, including migraines, and says chemotherapy left him in a constant state of nausea.
Mr Ernest was prescribed medicinal cannabis about 12 months ago, through the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service, shortly after when the drug was decriminalised for medicinal use in Queensland.
Since then, the former truck driver pays $160 every fortnight for a small bottle of cannabis oil – supplied from Canada – which he takes orally about 50 times a day.
The bottle, which needs to be refrigerated, may be expensive, but Mr Ernest said the difference he felt in treating his cancer was remarkable.
“It does make me tired, which is fantastic for your body if you are trying to heal yourself,” he said.
“It helps me sleep, but before I just couldn’t sleep at all.
“I’d be lucky to get three hours a night, because of the chemo. Now, I wake up and feel like a new man.
“The best thing is, is it’s making me feel better.”
There have been 15 approvals for medicinal cannabis issued to patients in the Far North via the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service (CHHHS) under the single-patient prescriber pathway in Queensland since March 1, 2017.
There is only one doctor working in CHHHS who has been approved to issue prescriptions, specialist practitioner Dr Aki Ghani.
Dr Ghani said his colleagues were reluctant to prescribe medicinal cannabis, due to the complex process required for authorisation, and concerns about its effectiveness.
“For me, I have had a good look at it,” he said.
“There is enough evidence out there, I feel, for me to be prescribing it.
“I have enough substantiative evidence to be going ahead and giving it a go.”
In Queensland, medicinal cannabis can only be approved for patients if they have already tried conventional treatments available for a reasonable period of time and these have failed, or if the effects of conventional treatment prove to be intolerable.
Prescribing doctors need to provide scientific evidence that the drug can be effective for their patients’ condition.
Dr Ghani described the process for clinicians trying to access prescriptions as cumbersome and time-consuming, despite it being streamlined in the past 18 months.
“I’ve been to conferences and met with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), and I know they’re trying,” he said. “They mean well.
“But here we are now with the very weird situation where the medicine is legal in this country, but it’s still listed as an illegal product.”