The Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) states that 32% of the Spanish adult population suffers from some form of pain and that 11% of those who suffer from it are chronic. but in Spain There is no medical specialty focused on pain, which is a problem for both the people suffering from it and the health professionals treating it in various fields.
The Spanish Multidisciplinary Pain Society (SEMDOR) works to convert pain in a characteristic And create specific areas of training (ACE) that allow the pain to be treated in the best possible way.
Is this claim valid?
since semdor, on the president, Luis Miguel Torres, Explain that this is a problem that affects a large part of the population. Patients with pain arrive at the health system with an illness that in some cases prevents them from working, interacting with others or even performing most of their day-to-day activities, i.e. a deformity. Which ultimately worsens their quality of life. , Patients cannot access pain units more easily. many people go primary care and go to another specialist traumatologist, neurologist or rehabilitator, In a circuit from one doctor to another.
In some cases, these patients find a place in one of the pain units in Spain. according to the data of semdor, There are currently a hundred public units and an equal number of private ones, but only thirty of these are multidisciplinary with many specialists and who can see more patients per day. The waiting list in these is for years.
Many patients do not receive, or even do not receive, adequate treatment. They communicate their pain by thinking That it is something they must tolerate or because they have not been treated well by doctors who do not have a good knowledge of this pathology.
new technologies Applied to its treatment and scientific advances in the field of pain, will compel the creation of this multidisciplinary specialty in Spain. Organization of this pathology at the state level is not enough.
This would mean “significant economic savings.” “It’s best for the doctors and, above all, for the patients”Torres explains.
It is present in other countries. In Germany and other South American countries they have already become a feature of pain, according to SEMDOR data. ,A trend that Spain must follow, Because the increasing prevalence of this disease in society means that there is a need for a specialized field to help health professionals deal with this pathology”, declares Torres.
However, building a trait is not an easy one and the process must be applied to create specific areas of competence that are the core of the future specialty. “Soon”, In the words of the President of SEMDOR.
palliative care
In this sense, the President of the Illustrious Official College of Physicians (ICOMEM) of Madrid, Dr. Manuel Martinez-SeleRemember that the Spanish Society of Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Pain Therapy brings together all specialists who deal exclusively with pain.
In particular, ICOMEM sees the need for the specialty of palliative care, as in most countries in our environment. “We have excellent palliative care specialists in Spain, but there needs to be an official specialty in palliative care,” Martínez Seles told OKSALUD, which has been claiming the issue for years even before the law was passed. of euthanasia in Spain, Contrary to this practice, he expressed the opposite position through a book before running for President of ICOMEM.
ICOMEM in its journal 152, as of October 2021, has raised many voices for a state law on palliative care and, in fact, a national bill at least twice in the past 5 years. admitted to the process, Thus, the legislative initiative of the ten autonomous communities (Andalusia in 2010, Aragon and Navarra in 2011, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and Galicia in 2015, Euscaddy in 2016, Madrid in 2017, Asturias and Valencia in 2018),
