The Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) will open additional specialised pain clinics across its network of hospitals, a senior official said yesterday.
The pain clinics are being planned in Hamad General Hospital (HGH), National Centre for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR) and Al Wakra, Rumailah, Heart, Women’s and Al Khor hospitals.
“Our aim is to increase the number of pain clinics in Hamad General, Rumailah, NCCCR and Al Wakra Hospitals, in order to reduce waiting times and to ensure patients receive the safest, most compassionate and most effective care,” said Dr Wael Saleem, consultant anaesthesiologist and head of Chronic Pain Management at HMC.
According to Dr Saleem, the new clinics are being overseen by the pain management team within the Anaesthesia Department at HMC and “are founded on modern evidence-based pain management guidelines and protocols”.
Pain management is a branch of medicine employing an interdisciplinary approach for easing the suffering and improving the quality of life of those living with pain.
“By establishing the new clinics across our network of hospitals, we will be able to increase the range of interventional pain procedures we can offer, which will further consolidate the existing acute and chronic pain services,” Dr Saleem said.
He said that restructuring of the Acute Pain Service at HGH had already been completed and a similar service would follow at Women’s and Al Khor Hospitals. “In each HMC hospital, a clinical co-ordinator will be allocated to the acute pain service. We already have the Chronic Pain Service in HGH and NCCCR and the most recently-opened pain clinic at Al Wakra Hospital (AWH) has been operational since January this year. This will be followed by Women’s, Al Khor and Heart Hospitals,” Dr Saleem added.
