Pain treatment course ends for Angau staff

MEDICAL staff at the Angau Memorial Hospital were given a workshop yesterday aimed at improving their skills on recognising, assessing and treating pain.
The participants included doctors and nurses from different sections.
The workshop was carried out by the Australian and New Zealand college of anesthetists at the request of local anaesthetist Gertrude Marum.
Dr Marum said pain was not well recognised and treated in and among the medical staff of PNG that was why she saw that there was a need to conduct the workshop.
Another session will also be conducted in Port Moresby
It was facilitated by two anaesthetic doctors from the college, Dr Roger Goucke and Dr Wayne Morriss.
Dr Morriss said pain was often a hidden problem that was often poorly treated because “we do not always recognise that a person is in pain”.
According to the international association for the study of pain, pain is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”.
Dr Morriss said pain was classified according to cause and duration, and by mechanism.
He said the classification of pain according to cause and duration, could be either due to cancer or non-cancer.
Dr Morriss said non-cancer pain could include causes from surgery, trauma and injury, degenerative conditions (eg arthritis), headache, nerve compression or childbirth.