Sickle Cell activist flays ‘wrong’ info by Ministry

Criticising the Health Ministry’s statement on the stock availability of morphine, Bahrain Society for Sickle Cell and Anaemia Care President Zakareya Al Kadhem accused the Ministry of not being transparent to the public.

Ministry of Health on Tuesday denied that morphine medication was out of stock. It stressed that the medicine, which is used in alleviating the patients’ pain, is available. The Ministry added that it was closely monitoring all medication needs of the sickle cell patients in accordance with the new treatment protocol taken in light of the recommendations of a group of experts from the US-based Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Meanwhile, Al Kadhem claimed that pharmacies at Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) had been at the risk of running out of stock since the beginning of this week. 

“They should know that they cannot solve a problem by trying to hide it. I urge them to be more transparent. If they are having a shortage, they should not give a wrong statement,” he said. 

“The shortage is a huge issue as morphine is vital for various patients. People coming out of surgery, or suffering from cancer or sickle cell disease, need it. How will they cope without it? For example, the pain of a severe sickle cell attack is equal to ten times the pain of a woman delivering a baby. This kind of pain we cannot bear,” he pointed out.

Al Kadhem revealed that sickle cell patients received morphine every four hours but recently that had been reduced to every six hours. 

“I came to know that sickle cell patients will receive morphine only once a day. This is not acceptable. They say that another medicine will be given as an alternative. This is not a solution, it may ease the pain but it will not be as effective, many patients are allergic to those medicines,” he added.