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Feeling the Pain. Healing the Pain

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/08/2023 (1070 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

My colleagues and I treat people experiencing pain. The hockey coach with whiplash who wants nothing more than to get back on the ice with his kid. The elderly woman with back problems who is doing her best to care for her husband who’s living with Alzheimer’s disease. The plant manager who suffers a 40-hour work week with searing hip pain.

Pain can prevent you from taking part in the activities you love, it can keep you home from work, it can prevent you from caring for your children or parents, and it can affect your mental health.

Thousands of Manitobans require pain management to live their best lives. This could be while they wait for surgery, as they recover from surgery, and even months after surgery when they might feel residual pain. Pain management is especially important when surgery is not an option. In most pain cases, there are treatments and there are solution, but in Manitoba there is also a problem. People are waiting too long for pain care.

Research tells us that patients have the best outcomes when their pain is treated within six months. In Manitoba, it can take well beyond six months for a patient to get the assessments and care they need. We must fix this, and there is a solution just around the corner through the HSC Foundation’s Operation Excellence campaign.

Pain management is one of the most fascinating areas of health care. We use a combination of approaches to help patients minimize pain and maximize function. For patients for whom surgery is not an option, a pain management program can preserve quality of life indefinitely. Pain management can include scheduled injections of steroids and other medications; physiotherapy and occupational therapy; psychology and other therapies. And exciting new technology is emerging all the time.

At HSC, we see up to 3,000 new patients a year and provide care to another 3,000 or so who are already in the system. HSC is the provincial hub for the Pain Care Program with services also offered in Brandon, Selkirk, Thompson, and at the Pan Am Clinic in Winnipeg. The success of the program at HSC has province-wide implications.

With the support of the HSC Foundation’s Operation Excellence campaign, the Pain Clinic at HSC will double in size and we will be able to double our caseload to about 12,000 a year. The impact will be profound.

Through Operation Excellence, we can prevent the worst effects of chronic pain and aspire to become pain-free Manitoba. Please donate today. Thank you.

Dr. Ryan Amadeo
Medical Director
Manitoba Pain Care Program
Health Sciences Centre