A BENDIGO man who has endured chronic pain for nine years has raised the need for additional services in the city.
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Darren Howard recently travelled to Albury to receive a ketamine infusion – a procedure his medical team prescribed to assist with his fibromyalgia.
He had been seeking to have the procedure done at Bendigo’s world-class new hospital.
But Bendigo Health does not offer the service, nor does it employ an accredited pain management specialist.
“Until we are able to establish a Chronic Pain Management Service and employ an Accredited Pain Management Specialist, we will be unable to safely provide ketamine infusions for chronic pain management,” a spokesperson for the health care group told the Bendigo Advertiser.
“Although we don’t have an accredited pain management specialist who can offer ketamine infusions for chronic pain management, we do have rehabilitation specialists currently involved in our pain management service.”
The spokesperson said Bendigo Health offered a multidisciplinary pain management service, which included rehabilitation specialists, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology and exercise physiology staff.
In a letter to Mr Howard, Bendigo Health recognised the lack of a chronic pain management service to be a gap in its service provision.
Mr Howard believed such a service would be well utilised.
He said he was a member of an online support group for people in the Bendigo area with fibromyalgia.
“There would be a lot of people in that group who would want to try this,” Mr Howard said.
Opioids have been his primary pain management tool since he was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, about nine years ago.
“It was just taking the edge off the pain,” Mr Howard said.
He said being reliant on opioids for a prolonged period of time had affected his health in other ways.
“I’ve been in hospital five times in the past two years,” Mr Howard said..
Since having the ketamine infusion, the 47-year-old said he had slowly been getting back into house work and easing off the opioids.
He just wanted to be able to have his next infusion done at his local hospital.
The cost of having a procedure done as a private patient was prohibitive for Mr Howard, who said he saved more than $10,000 by travelling to Albury to be treated in a public hospital.
He was admitted to hospital for five days to have the infusion – a process Mr Howard said he’d likely need to repeat sometime in the next six to 18 months.
Emma D'Agostino
Covering general news and Bendigo council.
Covering general news and Bendigo council.
