Authors
Felicia Marie Knaul, Paul E Farmer, Eric L Krakauer, Liliana De Lima, Afsan Bhadelia, Xiaoxiao Jiang Kwete, Héctor Arreola-Ornelas, Octavio Gómez-Dantés, Natalia M Rodriguez, George AO Alleyne, Stephen R Connor, David J Hunter, Diederik Lohman, Lukas Radbruch, María del Rocío Sáenz Madrigal, Rifat Atun, Kathleen M Foley, Julio Frenk, Dean T Jamison, MR Rajagopal, Huda Abu-Saad Huijer, Agnes Binagwaho, Snežana M Bošnjak, David Clark, James F Cleary, José R Cossío Díaz, Cynthia Goh, Pascal J Goldschmidt-Clermont, Mary Gospodarowicz, Liz Gwyther, Irene J Higginson, Thomas Hughes-Hallett, Emmanuel BK Luyirika, Maria E Medina Mora, Faith N Mwangi-Powell, Sania Nishtar, Megan E O'Brien, K Srinath Reddy, Judith A Salerno, Silvia Allende, Nahid Bhadelia, Mariana Calderon, Victoria Y Fan, Jorge Jiménez, Christian R Ntizimira, Pedro E Perez-Cruz, Isaias Gerardo Salas-Herrera, Dingle Spence, Mark R Steedman, Stéphane Verguet, Julia D Downing, Bishnu D Paudel, Maia Elsner, James Andrew Gillespie, Karen J Hofman, Quach Thanh Khanh, Karl A Lorenz, Oscar Méndez Carniado, Rachel Nugent, Emily B Wroe, Camilla Zimmerman
Publication date
2018/4/7
Source
The Lancet
Volume
391
Issue
10128
Pages
1391-1454
Publisher
Elsevier
Description
In agonising, crippling pain from lung cancer, Mr S came to the palliative care service in Calicut, Kerala, from an adjoining district a couple of hours away by bus. His body language revealed the depth of the suffering. We put Mr S on morphine, among other things. A couple of hours later, he surveyed himself with disbelief. He had neither hoped nor conceived of the possibility that this kind of relief was possible. Mr S returned the next month. Yet, common tragedy befell patient and caregivers in the form of a stock-out of morphine. Mr S told us with outward calm,“I shall come again next Wednesday. I will bring a piece of rope with me. If the tablets are still not here, I am going to hang myself from that tree”. He pointed to the window. I believed he meant what he said. Stock-outs are no longer a problem for palliative care in Kerala, but throughout most of the rest of India, and indeed our world, we find near total lack of …
Scholar articles
FM Knaul, PE Farmer, EL Krakauer, L De Lima… - The Lancet, 2018