‘Cancer patients need not suffer from pain’

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said lack of awareness among patients, physicians and pharmacists of appropriate cancer control programs mainly explains why some 200,000 Filipino cancer patients, every year, unnecessarily suffer from pain.

Dayrit said physicians, particularly cancer specialists, are still uncomfortable with the use of opiods such as morphine in the management of cancer pain although they believe these drugs are effective.

Most cancer patients, on the other hand, harbor unfounded fears of pain and the use of opiods to alleviate their suffering.

As the country observes National Cancer Consciousness Week, which began last Sunday, Dayrit called on cancer specialists anew to be more liberal in prescribing morphine to patients.

He issued the call in a speech read for him by Health Undersecretary Antonio Lopez at a conference on cancer at the Manila Midtown Hotel yesterday morning.

The conference discussed mainly the use of morphine and other opiods in sparing cancer patients from pain.

The conference is one of many lectures, symposia, meetings and dialogues the Philippine Cancer Society has lined up during the National Cancer Consciousness Week which adopted the slogan Walang Kirot Kahit May Kanser.

Dayrit said the Philippines has had a poor cancer pain control program with only a few hospitals across the country with "pain clinics."

He lamented that the Department of Health has provided some hospitals with morphine which they, however, have not consumed, leaving the drug to expire.

Dayrit said the government has imported P6 million worth of morphine tablets which they hope cancer specialists will utilize and prescribe to their patients to spare them from pain.