Eight patients in chronic pain take their own lives

EIGHT patients suffering with chronic pain took their lives in the last two months as they could no longer cope with the ‘devastating’ condition, a support group has revealed.

The condition is thought to affect 13 per cent of the population, or 400,000 people, with one in five of these in severe or debilitating pain.

John Lindsay, chairman of the Chronic Pain Ireland support group, said: ‘In the last two months, eight of our members have taken their own lives, because of chronic pain.

‘The main problem is pain is invisible it doesn’t show up on any MRI, or X-ray or head scan or CT scan.

‘Eight people in two months – that’s one a week – are taking their own lives because of the pain.

Mr Lindsay added: ‘This morning we had a phone call from an 84-yearold woman who said she can’t take any more. She said, “I want to end it all.”

‘Pain doesn’t discriminate against anybody [or on] age grounds. The youngest we would have come across is a nine-year-old girl.’

Mr Lindsay said many patients were reliant on the public health system where waiting lists ‘are growing and growing’.

He said: ‘It is just devastating for them. Nobody wants to end their life – they just want the pain to go away. It’s hard to imagine what it’s like... to get up every day not knowing how bad the pain is going to be.

‘While strong medications can help, they’re not the complete answer. As one consultant said to me, “I could leave everybody pain free, but they would be comatose for the rest of their lives.”’

Chronic Pain Ireland has around 2,500 members and tries to help people to reduce their level of pain.

Of the eight who died, six were women and the rest were men. They had neuropathic or nerve pain, it is understood.

CPI argues the development of a national pain strategy is key to the right development of the diagnosis, treatment and management of chronic pain.

Mr Lindsay said: ‘The waiting list is growing. It can take up to 14 months to see a consultant who specialises in pain medicine.’

One consultant in Dublin said waiting times for his patients were seven to eight months but can be longer elsewhere. Dr Paul Murphy, a pain specialist at St Vincent’s Hos- pital in Dublin, said chronic pain had a huge impact on patients physically, mentally and socially, saying it was ‘pain you just cannot escape’.

He said his team tried to get patients treated as quickly as possible. He said: ‘We can see somebody and we know what they need, but we just don’t have the capacity to treat them in a timely fashion.’

His pain management clinic sees up to 120 patients a week. He said: ‘Usually with chronic pain you don’t have any acute problem. There is

‘There is nothing to do to resolve it’

nothing that you can resolve.’

The HSE said many hospitals have an out-patient pain management clinic focused on trying to provide comprehensive pain assessment and a diagnosis for such patients.

It said some patients, if suitable, are recommended for pain interventions or injections. There are 12 pain management clinics at hospitals nationwide, it said.

FOR those of us who aren’t afflicted by chronic pain, it is difficult to imagine the daily agony endured by sufferers.

Yet, chances are, we all know at least one person affected by the condition.

About 400,000 members of the population are living with chronic pain. It is estimated that around one in five of them experiences such intense suffering that it is actually debilitating.

Nor do the grim statistics end there, however. According to the support group Chronic Pain Ireland, eight people have taken their own lives over the past two months because they could no longer put up with the excruciating torment.

By any stretch of the imagination, those are extremely alarming numbers.

Just imagine for a moment that a similar number of suicides were recorded over such a short time frame in, for example, the same town. Or, alternatively, if they involved people who had been taking the same prescription medication.

Or, for that matter, if they were patients suffering from the same specific ailment.

There would be a national outcry, of course. What’s more, the Government would do everything possible to divert resources into remedying the situation.

Yet chronic pain remains a largely grey issue in terms of public perception. Though it was finally recognised as a distinct medical speciality last year, general awareness levels remain low.

Most of us lucky enough not to be sufferers probably assumed the pain couldn’t be so bad that modern medicine would fail to alleviate it. Sadly, that simply isn’t the case. Meanwhile, the services available to sufferers are severely lacking.

There are fewer than 20 consultants working in the area of pain medicine and getting an appointment can take up to 14 months. Patients needing to see a clinical psychologist for related issues face a fouryear wait in some parts of the country.

This newspaper is aware that money is scarce. But given that we are talking about a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of people, it is something that cannot be simply swept under the carpet.

Quite simply, the onus is on the Coalition to come up with a viable solution. And sooner rather than later, before any more lives are lost.