Along with other representatives, Nurse Rosa Kiwanuka, head of the Palliative Care Association of Uganda, spoke about her experience prescribing oral morphine for patients in severe pain in Uganda during the preparatory Interactive Dialogue with the Office of the President of the General Assembly in February.
Many states highlighted the need to improve access to controlled medicines and the efforts they were making at the national level. These included, but were not limited to, Mexico, Panama, Uganda, Trinidad and Tobago, and Namibia for the Lower- and Middle-Income Countries, and Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Australia, the UK for the Higher- Income Countries.
The Drugs and Health roundtable received many comments on lack of access to controlled medicines and much interaction and learning took place in the multiple side events organised by member states, UN Agencies and civil society.
UN member states are to report on their progress in achieving the goals set out in the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action in the next UNGASS scheduled for 2019. Great progress has been achieved so far in making the international community more aware of the issue of lack of access to controlled medicines. The hard work now begins to operationalise the recommendations that were made in UNGASS 2016 outcome document at the national level.
You can read the full article by Dr Pettus on the IAHPC newsletter.
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