Imagine recovering from major surgery or suffering from advanced cancer without any painkillers. That’s the reality for patients in half the countries in the world – but unlike many global health problems, this one is not about money or a lack of drugs. Morphine, the gold standard for medical pain treatment, is cheap, simple to make, and easy to distribute.
Students and faculty of the International Reporting Program travelled to Ukraine, Uganda and India to find out why so many patients needlessly suffer the torture of medical pain, and to document the human toll of this hidden human rights crisis. The result was the Pain Project, which not only tells the stories of individual patients and those trying to help them, but reveals that the main impediments to a pain-free world are bureaucratic hurdles and the chilling effect of the global war on drugs.
The website contains an interactive map that shows how access to morphine is distributed throughout the world, as well as supplemental sidebars on the history, science and timeline of pain treatment. Individual country pages spotlight the pain management efforts of both patients and healers, such as an experiment in Uganda by American acupuncturists to introduce the ancient Chinese medical technique to Africa.
The Pain Project received widespread global attention in mainstream media, in part through the documentaries it produced in partnership with CBS Sunday Morning, Al Jazeera People & Power, and Global 16×9. The documentary “Freedom from Pain,” which aired on Al Jazeera on July 20, 2011, won second place in the 2011 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.
- Freedom From Pain (in partnership with Al Jazeera)
- A World of Pain (in partnership with CBS News)
- Life in Pain (in partnership with Global News)
