Does anyone know what Communist countries do w CP patients?!

yes, the gulag. workcamps

Really Russia and its teritories are not even communist anymore, they have ainept corrupt gov't with no money so mob familuies run things..I imagine medical as you said is only for the rich...and the rest drink themselves to death w/ cheap vodka(extremely high rates of alcoholism there)

Sad
Maggie

Post Edited By Moderator (Screaming Eagle) : 1/21/2012 5:35:45 PM (GMT-7)

I Googled Chronic Pain and China and assembled a few links below. The first is a video. The second is probably a solid study. The third is just from a blog.

http://painpolicy.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/treating-pain-in-china-opioids-or-acupuncture-life-before-death-film-17/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11798221
http://healthpolicyforum.org/post/cultural-differences-treatment-pain



Here's a general comment about healthcare in China:
China has a health insurance system that provides virtually free coverage for people employed in urban state enterprises and relatively inexpensive coverage for their families. The situation for workers in the rural areas or in urban employment outside the state sector is far more varied. There are some cooperative health care programs, but their voluntary nature produced a decline in membership from the late 1970s.

The severest limitation on the availability of health services, however, appears to be an absolute lack of resources, rather than discrimination in access on the basis of the ability of individuals to pay. An extensive system of paramedical care has been fostered as the major medical resource available to most of the rural population, but the care has been of uneven quality. The paramedical system feeds patients into the more sophisticated commune-level and county-level hospitals when they are available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_reform_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China


My guess is that Laos and Vietnam have very poor care in general. Cuba, on the other hand, is suppose to have fairly good healthcare. They, of course, have universal healthcare and very good access to basic care, but due to the U.S. embargo, face shortages in medicines and equipment. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba

I also found the following international study on opioid consumption:
http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/publicat/monograp/aphconf07.pdf

I do know that Cuba has a good teaching medical system and teaching hospital for students from Europe plus,South and Central American to train for there MD. Both of my son's have been there at least 5 times and had to use there medical system and it was very similar to ours. I am not Cuban but my ex-wife is and we wanted our kids to experience a different type of living. They really learned to appreciate what they have in the Good old U.S.A.

Cogito you did a great job of finding that info out, I am blown away, and very glad to be in the US.  You know where you are born, and everything else is so very random.  When you think about its, just the luck of the draw we were born and raised in the United States, and even though its not perfect, its a heck of alot better than anywhere else I can think of.

Anyway great job, take care, and by the way, this is nini/Kathy,

Hope you and everyone are feeling as good as they possibly can.

Hello Kitry, and once again we meet here in the early morning hours. It was my impression that your original post was about seeking help for a friend of yours regarding illicit use of his scripted med's and other problems. I did see you list some of your health Dx's, but was not aware that you were seeking support for yourself. My apology if you were.

You are quite correct, that we do not allow politics and religious content here on the CP forum, and I apologies for any off color remarks that have offended your political and religious beliefs. we do the best we can to monitor these rules, but sometime a few slip by us mod's.

The best way to handle these problems, is to report them to either any of the moderators, and or the Admin of this site. We prefer that you contact a moderator's first, and avoid confrontation by replying to the offending post.

As you can see, I have already edited this post twice, in efforts to avoid any members from being offended.

Thanks!

SE