Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'
7th December 2012, 10:08
It's cheap, effective and easy to administer - so why are millions of people around the world dying in pain, without access to morphine?
In an open ward at Mulago Hospital in Uganda's capital city, Kampala, an elderly woman named Joyce lies in the fifth bed on the left.
She has twisted the sheets around herself, her face contorted by pain. Joyce's husband, thin and birdlike, hovers over her.
Joyce has cancer - it has spread throughout her body - and until a few days ago, she was on morphine. Then it ran out.
In many ways, morphine is an excellent drug for use in developing countries. It is cheap, effective, and simple and easy to administer by mouth.
Yet according to the World Health Organization, every year more than five million people with cancer die in pain, without access to morphine.
A morphine-use map of the world
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64610000/gif/_64610376_morphine_graphicprinewcopy.gif
$2 (£1.25) - cost per week per patient
100% - percentage of people in UK and US who have access to morphine, if they need it
8% - percentage in the developing world who get morphine when required
20% of the world's painful deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, but only 1% of morphine use
Source: GAPRI (http://www.uicc.org/programmes/gapri)
(Full article here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20625482)
In an open ward at Mulago Hospital in Uganda's capital city, Kampala, an elderly woman named Joyce lies in the fifth bed on the left.
She has twisted the sheets around herself, her face contorted by pain. Joyce's husband, thin and birdlike, hovers over her.
Joyce has cancer - it has spread throughout her body - and until a few days ago, she was on morphine. Then it ran out.
In many ways, morphine is an excellent drug for use in developing countries. It is cheap, effective, and simple and easy to administer by mouth.
Yet according to the World Health Organization, every year more than five million people with cancer die in pain, without access to morphine.
A morphine-use map of the world
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64610000/gif/_64610376_morphine_graphicprinewcopy.gif
$2 (£1.25) - cost per week per patient
100% - percentage of people in UK and US who have access to morphine, if they need it
8% - percentage in the developing world who get morphine when required
20% of the world's painful deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, but only 1% of morphine use
Source: GAPRI (http://www.uicc.org/programmes/gapri)
(Full article here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20625482)