Challenges of Access to Oral Morphine Medicine: Palliative Care at a Crossroads for Cancer Patients in Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia registers 77,352 new cases of cancer and 51,865 deaths every year, and the number is showing an increasing trend year to year. Despite the importance of providing palliative care, the country has a long way to go to match the needs of and provide relief for patients with cancer. The promotion and expansion of palliative care services is challenged by a number of problems, among which lack of access to pain-relieving medicine is one of, if not the main, problems raised by health professionals and by various parties involved in health care. Oral morphine is effective and the preferred pain-relieving medicine with tolerable side effects, especially when given by titrating the dose. However, Ethiopia is facing a shortage of oral morphine in health-care facilities and other places where the product is needed. Unless an immediate solution is sought to address the inaccessibility of this medicine, the problem of palliative care will be pronounced and the suffering of patients will continue.

Keywords:

• palliative care
• morphine
• cancer
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all those who provided information on the situation of palliative care and availability of morphine products in the country.

Disclosure

The authors declare no conflicts of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for this research.