Posted on June 21, 2013, Friday

KUCHING: Pain medicine has now become the main mode of post-operative analgesia and is widely used in the management of cancer and chronic pain.

Relatively a new field in the country, it has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade.

According to deputy director of Health Malaysia Dr Chin Zin Hing, anaesthesiologists are the main players in the delivery of healthcare, with the latest count of 361 anaesthesiologists at 51 hospitals, providing high quality medical care to patients.

The current evidence-based knowledge on pain medicine has formed the basis for the new Pain Management Handbook, recently published by the Medical Development Division, Ministry of Health (MOH).

It serves as a guide for pain team in the hospitals to treat patients suffering from all kinds of pains. With only 15 pain specialists and five trainees in our system currently, I commend your commitment and hard work especially with the recent introduction of acupuncture.

I hope more pain relieving techniques and newer drugs will be introduced in the future, he said.

He was representing the director-general of Health Malaysia Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah at the opening of the 12th Asian and Oceanic Society of Regional Anaesthesia (Aosra) and Pain Medicine Congress here yesterday.

A total of 952 delegates from over 27 countries are attending the congress held here from June 19 to 22.

It is jointly organised by the Malaysian Society of Anaesthesiologists, the College of Anaesthesiologists and the Malaysian Association for the Study of Pain.

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‘Pain medicine now widely used for management of cancer, chronic pain’