Dr. Jacinto Amandua, the Commissioner for Clinical Services says many patients suffering with cancer, tuberculosis or HIV endure unbearable pain yet it could be prevented by orally administered morphine.
He says studies have indicated that when administered orally or through injections, the drug blocks the perception of pain but it doesn’t treat the cause of pain, which is cancer, or AIDS.
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Because of its addictive nature, morphine has been controlled in Uganda and the ministry of health has no legal backing to promote it in management of pain.
Amandua says in the past only medical doctors were charged with prescribing morphine but the policy has been changed to allow clinical officers or nurses to prescribe its use.
He says nurses are now being retrained to prescribe morphine while health training institutions are also offering morphine prescription as part of the training, given the HIV and cancer cases.
Francis Okongo, a clinical officer at St Mary’s Hospital Lacor, who conducted a research on health workers management of morphine in Gulu, says morphine is relevant even for patients on ARV drugs.
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Okongo says ARVs have side effects some of which are very painful and need to be controlled as part of the holistic management of the terminally ill persons under what is called palliative care in medicine.
Currently, less than ten percent of over 200,000 cancer and HIV patients in Ugandans are on palliative care, which includes use of morphine in pain relief.
Rose Kiwanuka, the country director of Hospice Uganda says one of the limiting factors is that many health workers are not knowledgeable in palliative care especially in HIV and cancer.
Health experts recommend the use of morphine in administering treatment to people suffering from acute or chronic pain.
