The Therapeutic Goods Administration discussion paper suggesting general practitioners should no longer be able to prescribe strong painkillers (“GPs face ban on painkillers”, The Age, 27/1) ignores two major issues.
Firstly, many GPs are competent and capable of playing their part in managing patients with chronic pain, including palliative care, but they often have little access to the supports needed to manage complex issues such as poverty, illicit drug abuse, mental health, and addiction, or knowledge of how often the patient is getting second supplies of the drugs through another doctor.
Secondly, the suggestion that pain specialists will be able to replace GPs is laughable. Many patients with chronic pain are poor because they can’t work. Private pain specialists are often very expensive. Two of my patients were told by their specialists last year that as WorkCover had ceased they would have to pay a huge co-payment despite being on Newstart and drastically below the poverty line. These specialists were managing their income not their patients’ health.
Public pain clinics exist but are limited, with waiting times of months to years. The federal government continues to underfund the public system in its pursuit of privatisation of our health system with public care as a miserable safety net.
What will patients do? Suffer more.