Human Rights Watch Reports on “Uncontrolled Pain” in Ukraine

Tens of thousands of patients with advanced cancer in Ukraine unnecessarily suffer from severe pain every year because they cannot get effective, safe, and inexpensive pain medications, Human Rights Watch said in a recent report. The 93-page report, " Uncontrolled Pain: Ukraine's Obligation to Ensure Evidence-Based Palliative Care ," describes Ukrainian government policies that make it impossible for cancer patients living in rural areas to get essential pain medications. Human Rights Watch found that while most cancer patients in cities have access to some medications, the treatment they receive is inadequate and provides only limited relief.

The report identified three key obstacles to proper pain treatment in Ukraine:

1. The lack of oral morphine. Only injectable morphine is available.

2. Drug regulations. In its efforts to crack down on illicit drug use, Ukraine has adopted some of the most restrictive drug regulations in the world, without appropriate regard to the need for access to drugs on medical grounds.

3. Training of health care workers. Medical students and young doctors do not receive adequate training in modern pain treatment approaches.

These three obstacles combine to deny patients adequate medical treatment, Human Rights Watch said. For example, Ukraine's drug regulations require injectable morphine - the only formulation of the medication available in the country - to be administered by a health care worker directly to the patient. Since morphine acts for just four to six hours, this means that a health care worker must visit a patient who is dying at home, as most cancer patients in Ukraine do, six times a day. Human Rights Watch research shows that most patients get either no morphine or one or two doses a day. If oral morphine were available, patients could receive a take-home supply and take the medications themselves.

 Take action: Click here http://www.hrw.org/en/features/ukraine-pain-free and write a letter to Ukraine’s minister of health urging him to introduce oral morphine.

Diederik Lohman
Senior Researcher Health and Human Rights Division
Human Rights Watch
[email protected]