Federal health minister says national task force on chronic pain is a 'first step'

The federal health minister is forming a national task force to provide input on how to better prevent, treat and manage chronic pain, which is thought to affect one in five Canadians and is often addressed with opioids.

Ginette Petitpas Taylor said the task force will provide information on barriers that may prevent people suffering with persistent pain from receiving the treatment they need. 

"This is the first step in addressing the issue of chronic pain in this country," she said Wednesday, adding the eight members will consult with governments and advocacy groups around the country and provide an initial report in June, followed by two more over the next couple of years.

Petitpas Taylor made the announcement in Toronto at the 40th annual scientific meeting of the Canadian Pain Society, which has long called for a national pain strategy, especially as the opioid crisis has exacerbated the stigma around prescribing and use of painkillers.

Advocates for pain patients presented the previous Conservative government with a plan in 2012, but Petitpas Taylor said it's too early to say whether such a plan will be introduced.

She said she committed to exploring the creation of a national pain task force after a discussion with patients, clinicians and researchers at a symposium in Toronto last year, when she heard people living with pain often feel their condition is misunderstood and services are inconsistent.

"We have to recognize that Canada's a big country, and we certainly know there's inconsistent services in provinces and territories, so I have to really have a good understanding of what's available and what's happening out there," Petitpas Taylor said.

Andrew Koster, who suffers from debilitating lower back and knee pain from a type of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis, said he's concerned the task force's work will go nowhere if there's a change in government in October.

"I'm looking for signs from the government that they're taking this seriously and it's not just something to state during an election campaign," he said. "There has to be definite action."

Koster, who will have surgery on his left knee next month following an operation on the other one last year, said he can no longer afford to pay $100 a week for acupuncture to deal with daily pain after he voluntarily reduced his opioids over concerns about any long-term consequences.

"People with chronic pain are often underemployed or unemployed because they simply cannot work, and not all of us have extended health benefits — and even health benefits run out," he said from Victoria.

He said it's crucial for the task force to identify non-drug costs for patients and provinces for services such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy and acupuncture as part of any strategy it may come up with in its final report.

Serena Patterson, a 60-year-old psychologist in Comox, B.C., has lived with pain associated with fibromyalgia for over half her life and also developed migraines that prevented her from continuing her teaching job at a college.

She said a three-year task force seems excessive, especially because advocacy groups have enough information on health-care gaps, and patients wait too long to see specialists.

"I think we know that people are dying in an opioid epidemic, and chronic pain patients are high on that list," Patterson said.

"I would hope that this three years would be building, not more research. What needs to be built is a network of multidisciplinary team programs that are accessible, that are in rural areas as well as urban areas, that provide not only medical support but psychological as well as social support to help people be full participants in their life and in their community."

Dr. Norman Buckley, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care at McMaster University in Hamilton, said hundreds of organizations, patients, clinicians and researchers came together in providing the federal government with the strategy in 2012. There was no action at the time but he said the opioid epidemic has now made that unavoidable.