A Survey for Canadian Pain Patients
/By Ann Marie Gaudon, PNN Columnist
The last few years have been very difficult for pain patients in Canada. If you are one of the severely pained, you well know that government officials, in a misguided attempt to deal with the problems of addiction and overdose deaths, decided that doctors have been over-prescribing opioid medications and that pain patients taking opioid therapy were the cause of the problems.
The Chronic Pain Association of Canada (CPAC) knows this was never true.
Given the fact that overdose deaths continue to increase as opioid prescriptions have been drastically reduced, government policy has been a total failure while causing tremendous harm to innocent victims.
As a volunteer for CPAC, I want to let you know that our goal is to educate the public, people in medicine, regulatory bodies, and Health Canada on the nature and severity of chronic pain and its treatment. We are working hard behind the scenes to spread awareness with the correct information. No hype, no hysteria – just the facts.
CPAC has created an anonymous survey for Canadians needing opioid medication for pain treatment. We are running out of time and need your help.
The survey is designed to gain a snapshot of how your medical care has unfolded over the past couple of years and how this has affected your overall health. It will take approximately 5 to 10 minutes to complete.
If you are a Canadian pain patient in need of opioid medicines or a caretaker of same, this survey is for you. Please share it widely.
This survey is anonymous: we will not collect personal information, your email address or your computer's IP address.
Once we have collected the data, it will be shared with Health Canada, other government health officials, the media, and all of our allies. If you are not on our emailing list, please join us here.
The time is NOW for your valuable input. Take and/or share the survey by clicking clicking here.
Thank you for helping Canada’s only national advocate for pain patients. We can’t do it without you!
Ann Marie Gaudon is a registered social worker and psychotherapist in the Waterloo region of Ontario, Canada with a specialty in chronic pain management. She has been a chronic pain patient for over 30 years and works part-time as her health allows. For more information about Ann Marie's counseling services, visit her website.
The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represents the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.
