Access to pain relief: an essential human right. A report for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day 2007. Help the hospices for the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance

Abstract

In observance of World Hospice and Palliative Care Day, October 6, 2007, the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance developed a comprehensive publication advocating access to pain relief as a basic human right. The British Charity help the Hospices distributed this publication, which describes the current state of pain relief in advanced disease throughout the world, availability and lack of access to opioid analgesics, clinical case examples of how pain can be managed, governmental and private initiatives and barriers to pain relief, and statistics to support the position that pain relief is a basic human right.