(Second of a series)

MANILA, Philippines?Dr. Henry Lu, president of the Pain Society of the Philippines, had encounters with people suffering from cancer.

For instance, his sister who had end stage colon cancer was only given 20 tablets of 10 mg morphine and was told that it?s good for three months.

Dr. Lu has a patient with end stage lung cancer in Butuan City who needs morphine. The hospital pharmacy can only give them 3 remaining ampules of morphine.

A patient in Legazpi City can?t find any Fentanyl ampule in the whole region.

A mother of a 3-year-old patient with end stage cancer had difficulty looking for doctors to prescribe morphine to her son who had bad abdominal pain.

Intended beneficiaries

These people and those who have difficulty in obtaining opioids to ease their pain would have benefited from the workshop on ?Assuring Availability and Accessibility of Opioid Analgesics for Pain and Palliative Care? held at the Boracay Regency Beach Resort and Convention Center if it were held earlier.

The delegates from the Philippines come from government agencies and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that are involved in pain free advocacy.

NGOs

Among these NGOs are the Pain Society of the Philippines and Hospice Philippines.

The Society of the Philippines is co-terminus with the mother organization, the International Association for the Study of Pain. It was organized for educational, scientific and charitable purposes.

Hospice Philippines has over 50 hospice and palliative care organizations nationwide. Among them are SMILES of Davao, FACES of Bacolod, Cancer Care Network of Cebu and PALCARE based in PGH.