Chronic Pain

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:42): Today I would like to speak about the issue of chronic pain in South Australia, because it is one of our many hidden disabilities that leads to sigma that you do not necessarily find with your average chronic illness or disability. Like mental illness, or people with stoma (urostomy or colostomy bags), people with chronic pain often find that they face significant stigma from family, friends and colleagues, the general community and even medical professionals. People just do not seem to believe that the person is in fact experiencing chronic pain.

The thing about chronic pain is that it is invisible. If someone has had their leg amputated or uses a wheelchair, then you can see there is an issue, but for many with chronic pain, the issue is hidden and makes it all the worse. If someone is losing their hair from chemotherapy, you believe them that they are having treatment for cancer, but it seems to be human nature to not necessarily believe, understand or empathise with someone else's experience if we cannot see it ourselves.

I use a wheelchair and no-one questions whether I have a disability or not, but for people with chronic pain and other invisible disabilities, they find themselves constantly subjected to the allegation that they are making up the pain or that it is all in their head. In addition to trying to manage pain, often with limited treatment, access to drugs and support, coping with the stigma of others is soul destroying. Chronic pain can be absolutely debilitating, leaving people experiencing it unable to work, live or even participate in family life. The World Health Organisation says that chronic pain is one of our most underestimated health problems worldwide. This is certainly the case for South Australia, when you consider:

1. the lack of a chronic pain strategy for the state of South Australia;

2. the unacceptably long waiting times to see SA chronic health specialists in SA Health;

3. the failure of South Australia to adopt the National Pain Strategy 2010—and I am at pains to state that we are the only state not to have done so;

4. the failure of SA Health to include chronic pain in any strategic planning documents that are publicly available;

5. the process for approving and prescribing schedule 8 medications in the very small percentage of people who require a very high dosage of opioid medications; and

6. the lack of proper review and appeal processes and principles of natural justice being absent when access to schedule 8 medication is denied.

One in five Australians under the age of 65 will experience chronic pain and one in three Australians over the age of 65 will experience chronic pain in their lifetime. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hosting and facilitating a meeting that has been a long time in the making. Following many constituents who were experiencing chronic pain contacting my office in the preceding three years, the South Australian health minister, the Hon. Jack Snelling MP, finally agreed to meet with some of these people. I certainly do appreciate the health minister's efforts to attend the meeting for an hour yesterday but also appreciate senior SA Health officers making themselves available. However, I will say this: unless we address some of the failings I mentioned earlier in SA Health's current approach to chronic pain, we will face a further crisis in the coming years.

As the South Australian population ages, the rate of chronic pain experienced will only increase. Unless we acknowledge that this is one of our major health system failings, we will face a chronic pain issue of epic proportions. I do hope that the minister pushes his bureaucrats in SA Health to rectify the current malaise we seem to have around chronic pain in this state. The meeting was certainly a welcome first step, and I appreciate the efforts of my constituents in coming into parliament to meet with the minister and myself, and I look forward to continuing this action in this very important area.