“If chronic pain is not treated, this is a human rights problem. It is therefore important that the Austrian pain society shows social injustice in pain medicine, “says folklore Bernhard Achitz:” The public prosecutor has an aspect of it, namely inadequate pain management in old people’s and nursing homes The first improvements are shown.
80 percent of people who live in old people’s and nursing homes suffer from pain. Many of them consider this to be normal in their age. They don’t say anything and nothing is done against the pain. But not or not sufficiently fought pain have drastic effects: the quality of life drops, depression, fear and sleep disorders can result. The pain can become chronic.
Skillary treatment of pain violates the rights to health in the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabilities (UN-BRK), to physical and mental integrity and, in serious cases, also the right to protection against violence and the right to protection against humiliating treatment.
Pain must be treated immediately
“Pain must be treated immediately. This is only possible if they are recognized in good time, ”says Volksanwalt Bernhard Achitz:“ In older people with dementia, cognitive impairments or communication difficulties, the risk is particularly high that pain is overlooked. If people cannot express their pain, this can also lead to violence. “
The public prosecutor and their commissions (together they form the “national prevention mechanism” – NPM) in their inspection visits in the old people’s and nursing homes a focus on pain management. For this purpose, the commissions visited a total of 123 institutions in all federal states from July 2022 to September 2023. They spoke to 1,511 residents or spotted their documentation.
Result: In a quarter of the old people’s and nursing homes visited at the time, there was no systematic, documented pain management, or no measures to detect, prevention and treatment of pain were used. No pain assessment instruments were used in every fifth facility, neither for dementia sufferers nor for cognitively powerful residents. There was far too little training for the staff on the subject of pain.
Nursing homes react to criticism of the public prosecutor
“A year later, the first improvements are shown as a result of the trial,” said Achitz. The need for optimization is aware of many homes. This was shown in the fact that z. B. Training for pain management carried out or at least planned. In many facilities, pain management has now been implemented, which had been missing when visiting the test. Nevertheless, in practice, difficulties or avoidable hospital admissions can occur if multimodal pain treatment fails because relatives of other health professions (especially doctors and doctors) are not available quickly enough at night or on weekends. “We will continue to look at the situation in the old and nursing homes,” Achitz assures.
Test focus “Pain management and palliative care in old people’s and nursing homes”: https://volksanwaltschaft.gv.at/artikel/pruefschwerpunkt-schmerzmanagement-und-palliativversorgung-in-alten-und-pflegeheimen
SERVICE: The public prosecutor’s office is under post@volksanwaltschaft.gv.at as well as available under the free service number 0800 223 223.