LIFE Before Death

LIFE Before Death is a documentary project comprising a feature film, a one-hour television program and 50 short films about the global crisis in untreated pain and the dramatic life-changing effect palliative care services can deliver to patients and their families around the world.

The feature film has just been released. During February 2012 the film will be screened in 27+ countries across all continents, in 10 languages. Cairdeas was invited to the screening in London.

You can pay to watch the film online.
It's also available as a DVD, and can be ordered via the lifebeforedeath.com website.

Genesis of the LIFE Before Death project lay in remarks from WHO. "The project co-producer Mike Hill and I read a 2009 WHO statement saying that 600 million people worldwide were going to suffer in their lifetime from untreated pain due to a lack of access to medicinal opiates", explains Australian documentary maker Sue Collins. "We found that a very alarming statistic", she added. Here are three more alarming statistics: more than 5 billion people worldwide have no access to essential pain medicines; this year 3.6 million people will die with untreated severe pain from cancer and AIDS; and 99.9% of these deaths will be in low-income and middle-income countries.

Then there are the misconceptions associated with opiates, the assumption that because, chemically, heroin is a stone's throw from morphine, it will result in much the same kind of degradation. In Opiophobia, the fourth of the short films, American physician Kathleen Foley is baffled by pharmacies that won't stock opiates and patients who fear addiction more than agonising death. Yet two-thirds of patients with cancer have substantial pain in the last 2-3 months of their life.

The above are quotes from an article in The Lancet - Oncology Vol 12, Issue 8, pp 733-34, August 2011 which can be downloaded free of charge.