Pain - a forgotten reality

Abstract

Most of us will experience pain during our lives. Although it has been considered of little
importance, we are now recognising pain as a major public health issue. Cancer pain, due to
the obvious rising incidence of cancer, is a well-known problem of all those who deal with
these patients. While effective pain management for individual patients is obviously
important, improving pain management generally will require the implementation of
institutionwide quality management programs, changing laws and regulatory practice and
convincing administrators and the general public that pain management is important and
merits support.