It is one of the sign that tells us that something is wrong with our body, unfortunately majority of health care providers do not recognize pain and don’t know how to assess and manage it. It is out of this reason that the Pain Free Hospital Initiative was developed.
The Pain free Initiative Program which focuses on training health care workers on proper pain management recently concluded 6 months training of about 700 healthcare providers. The initiative main objectives was to motivate clinicians to evaluate and treat the pain, supply appropriate drugs to treat pain, engage hospital staff to create awareness about pain, equip clinicians with the skills and tools to effectively treat the pain and lastly measure the programs impact by documenting patient pain scores and physicians knowledge.
The training was conducted at The Kenyatta National Hospital and AIC Kijabe Hospital, similar training it is being conducted at Moi Teaching and referral hospital. There are plans to roll out the project to other hospitals including Machakos Level 5, Maua Methodist Hospital among others.
‘The training was indeed valuable it has equipped us with the right knowledge on managing and treating patients to our patients’ one of the nurses said.
“There is an attitude change among doctors and nurses towards patients in pain and I hope we will include pain as the 5th vital sign” comment from one of the trained nurses from Kijabe.
The Pain-Free Initiative was developed by the American Cancer Society’s Treat the Pain Program in partnership with Kenya Hospice and Palliative Care Association (KEHPCA) to integrate pain treatment into service delivery at hospitals where pain relief is available yet under-prescribed.
This article originally appeared on the Kenya edition of ehospice.
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