Misuse of pain killers among health professionals disturbing

Dr. Dairus Osei, Technical Advisor to the Ministry being assisted to cut the ribbon and launch the documents

The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has expressed concern about what it describes as “disturbing rise in incidence of misuse and abuse of opioids even among healthcare professionals.”

Opioids are a class of drugs that are commonly used to treat pain, but they can also be highly addictive and dangerous.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KATH, Professor Otchere Addai-Mensah, who expressed the concern, intimated, “opioid misuse within the healthcare sector poses health risks.”

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop on the rational use of drugs in Kumasi, he said the “rational use of drugs is of paramount importance in any health care set­ting as it is a proven indicator of the quality of clinical services rendered by health facilities.”

He urged medical officers, including pharmacists to prescribe and admin­ister pain killers, popularly referred to as opioids, with caution because, in their bid to help patients deal with pain “there is a temptation to pre­scribe medications that could jeop­ardise the state and health conditions of patients.”

According to him, pain was one of the most common medical complaints on earth and could adversely impact on the physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing of sufferers, resulting in a number of debilitations including sleeplessness, immobility, poor appetite and general reduction in the quality of life.

However, he noted that many chronic sufferers did not have access to effective pain management for a variety of reasons, including limited access, restrictions, personal and cul­tural biases and misconceptions about the use of opioids.

He indicated that the widespread use of opioids in contemporary pain management practices has become one of the most complex and globally challenging topics in medical care.

“But as health workers, daily expe­riences in the use of opioids for pain management has not only brought to the fore of the critical role they play in alleviating unbearable suffer­ing among patients but the distinct challenges that come with them,” he lamented.

These challenges, he reiterat­ed, included clinical access issues, regulatory pressures and, “currently, the disturbing rise in the incidence of their misuse and abuse even among healthcare professionals.”

On her part, Madam Olivia Agye­kumwaah Boateng, a Director at the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), asked medical practitioners to take interest in opioids prescribed by phar­macists to their patients.

She noted that currently, the Inter­national Narcotics Control Authority, having realised the wanton use of opi­oids by some unscrupulous people has worked on regulating the supply of same to nations across the world.

The workshop is aimed at sensi­tising the KATH’S core health care professionals involved in the prescrip­tion, dispensing and administration of medications on the contemporary practices in the rational use of med­icines.

 From Kingsley E. Hope, Kumasi