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LIFE BEFORE DEATH -- Together We Are Stronger

Posted by Greg Schneider on November 12, 2011 at 12:09pm
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Tags: dying, "cancer pain", death, "illicit war on drugs", "civil society"
Together We Are Stronger Short film 24 of 50 in the LIFE Before Death documentary series about the global crisis in untreated pain and the dramatic life changing effect palliative care services can deliver to patients and their families around the world. In this short film we discover the burden of untreated cancer pain and that the collective action required in solving the problem is likely to bring about a broader positive social change that will benefit us all. "Globally there are many, many people who are in need of pain medications and in need of the skills for controlling pain," explains Dr Cynthia Goh (Singapore). "I think what we're trying to do is create a more caring society at every level." "Pain relief is a human right," states Dr Bernard Lapointe (Canada). "A country denying its citizens access to drugs that relieve pain is accepting torture. So as concerned citizens we have to pressure our governments for them to intervene on the international platforms as support access to pain relief." "Obviously we do have a social responsibility," reflects Dr Mary Cardosa (Malaysia). "It's not just the responsibility of physicians in that everybody has a social responsibility -- all health care providers, administrators and society in general." "In a civilized society, if you see somebody falling down near you your automatic human response is to give a hand to lift the person up," explains Dr MR Rajagopal (India). "We'll do it as an individual but as a collective society we seem to be turning our backs to them. When I say 'we', I mean the whole world." "You can tell a lot about a country by the way it treats it's dying," humors Dr Natalya Dinat (South Africa). "We do owe it to ourselves and our society to ensure that dying is as important a part of life as birth, as growing up." "I absolutely believe that universal access to palliative care is not only an achievable goal and realistic - it's a human right," continues Helen Hestral (USA). "So we now see that these drugs have become available in some countries. We've seen that some cancer patients have access to these drugs. Where we see the difficulties is in resource-poor countries where there appears to be no access basically because of this very strong regulatory environment," continues Dr Foley.

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  • Greg Schneider November 12, 2011 at 12:21pm

    This clip in the series really ties together the bigger picture as to why people are not receiving the pain medications they need.  Things are changing but we have a long way to go, especially for the impoverished parts of the world.

    Greg Schneider
    Founder & President, HVA

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