Letter: A real pain

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with the points Dorothy Grace Elder makes regarding chronic pain (Comment, 1 December). As a patient and a founder member of the original Chronic Pain Cross Party Working Group, I have watched in dismay as our government makes hollow promises to chronic pain sufferers.

By The Newsroom

Published 28th Feb 2019, 14:03 GMT

I have heard a variety of excuses for the lack of government cash. This is despite numerous reports - including Professor James McEwen's in 2004 - acknowledging that chronic pain is a condition in its own right. When will such reports be implemented?

Chronic pain sufferers need help and support to manage their condition. Instead, health secretary Nicola Sturgeon is ploughing massive sums of taxpayers' money into her obsession with anti-smoking campaigns and obesity initiatives.

If I was an obese smoker, I would get all the clinical help and support I needed. Instead, an injury at work has resulted in me being a chronic pain sufferer and I'm left to deal with my condition on my own.

Most sufferers of chronic pain have not made the choice to suffer. Yet they are the people short-changed by the government and NHS. Fair? I don't think so

John Thomson

Haig Drive

Glasgow