
2nd international conference on development of palliative care for adults and children
Roszdravnadzor’s head Mikhail Murashko took part in the 2nd International Conference on Development of Palliative Care for Adults and Children held in Moscow from 29 November to 1 December 2016.
In his report he noted that the situation in the country in general changed for the better: the number of medical organizations providing palliative care in the regions grew; doctors prescribed painkillers both at the initial attendance and when visiting patients at home; if necessary, patients also got prescriptions when they were discharged from hospital; advanced pain control pharmaceutical forms, in particular, transdermal systems, were available in all regions; complaints for low quality of and delays in pain relief fell down by 1,4 times; the number of palliative care medical organizations increased by 50% (as compared against 2015).
“Palliative care is a set of medical interventions aimed at release from pain, while pain relief is a legally established right of the patient”, noted Mikhail Murashko in his address to the conference. “At the same time, Roszravnadzor’s inspections and information received on the Service’s hotline provide evidence of some violations of this civil right in certain subjects of the Russian Federation”.
The problems of availability of narcotic analgesics can be resolved only in active cooperation with executive authorities. In this connection, at the beginning of this autumn Roszravnadzor instructed heads of executive authorities to draw up, within the shortest possible time, lists of pharmacies, medical organizations and structural subdivisions thereof requiring licenses for dispensing narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances to individuals; to analyze all forms and procedures of provision of narcotic preparations to all those in need thereof in the region, especially in hard-to-reach locations (mobile medical teams, social workers, volunteers, etc.); to draw up a schedule and a road map for increasing the number of points of dispensing of narcotic medicinal preparations in separate structural subdivisions of medical organizations located in rural, hard-to-reach and low-populated areas.
Roszravnadzor also instructed heads of healthcare governmental authorities of subjects of the Russian Federation to organize in their regions keeping record of persons in need of prescription of narcotic medicinal preparations due to medical reasons and those receiving such preparations.
Setting up and keeping such records will ensure rights of individuals to pain alleviation, provision of reliable information for calculation of requirements for narcotic analgesics, and higher availability and efficiency of prescription of these preparations for patients.
“A patient with a serious disease should not suffer from an intolerable pain,” Mikhail Murashko underlined in conclusion. “A human being comes to this life beautifully and should leave with dignity, without physical suffering, and Roszravnadzor as a surveillance authority will make every effort to ensure these legitimate rights”.