Sum Pain Clinic in Odisha brings smiles

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, July 4:

If you live in Odisha and are putting up with a persistently painful condition with no remedy in sight, this is a must-read.

Visit the Pain Clinic at the Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) and Sum Hospital here where specialists use state-of-the-art procedures to manage your condition and bring the smile back on your face.

The Pain Clinic at Sum Hospital is the only interventional pain clinic in Odisha providing various advanced services including minimally invasive techniques, says Dr Shovan Kumar Rath, the Pain Specialist at the hospital.

Dr Rath is the first pain physician in the state to get FIPP degree from the World Institute of Pain (WIP), Maastricht University, The Netherlands, considered one of the highest milestones in the field of pain management.

The Pain Clinic at Sum Hospital, says Rath, has been providing state-of-the-art service to a large population suffering from chronic pain conditions like cancer related pain, headache, back pain, muscle and fibromyalgia pain, facial pain (including trigeminal neuralgia), complex sympathetic dystrophy, arthritic pain, post-surgical pain and abdominal and pelvic pain.

“Besides, these services are available at the most affordable cost to the patients. Restoration of physical function, compassionate care and patient education has been the practice philosophy of the Pain Clinic,” he said.

The Clinic, functioning for the last four years, has been successful in bringing back the smile on the faces of thousands of patients suffering from cancer pain helping them to lead the terminal phase of their lives, Rath said.

Pointing out that pain was a major health issue throughout the world, he said unrelieved pain had major negative effects on the lives of millions of people in India and was associated with high costs involved in its treatment.

Both acute and chronic pain was poorly managed for a wide variety of cultural, attitudinal, educational, political and logistical reasons. Chronic pain, he said, was now considered as a disease in its own rights.

Rath, who has recently started a movement named “PainfreeOdisha” in a bid to create awareness among the people concerning the role of the Pain Clinic, said among all the prevalent medical illnesses chronic pain ranked at the top with musculoskeletal and back pain affecting the highest number of people followed by cancer-related pain.

“Unfortunately, despite the magnitude of suffering, chronic pain remains grossly under-treated in most patients. Out of the diagnosed cancer cases, almost 60 to 70 per cent of the patients die with pain and many live with the same,” he said.

Rath said Pain Clinics were specialized areas which now assumed the role of an essential service as they meet a need previously unmet by any existing medical facility. The Pain Clinic at Sum Hospital was the first of its kind in Odisha providing such services for treatment of chronic pain by using advanced technology.

Besides the pain, the Pain Clinic also treated emotional, behavioral and social aspects of the suffering, he added.

“The catchword is early intervention to get rid of any kind of pain or get it reduced. We need to create a pain free Odisha where no cancer patient should die with pain and no one should suffer from chronic pain,” he added.