8-20-2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Pain is vastly under treated in America and pain patients face many barriers to receiving adequate care. The National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain is a not for profit organization, which seeks to accomplish comprehensive and effective medical treatment and social justice for all who are involved with legitimate medical pain. Patients, their families, the doctors who treat them, the pharmacists who fill their prescriptions, the manufacturers who produced the drugs and the insurance companies and agencies which pay for it all, are the target population for membership in the Foundation.
To accomplish adequate care for those in pain, the National Foundation has ten essential goals. It has a strategic plan to accomplish them, a significant part of which is already under way. It has established a plan for assuring adequate care for patients in pain.
No other existing organization has this comprehensive focus. All current organizations concerned with Pain are either highly specialized in their focus, associations of medical and related professionals, or affiliated with institutions of higher learning. Their focus has been on issues of research, policy and education. One foundation focuses essentially on trying to defend pain treatment doctors who are being prosecuted. The National Foundation exists to accomplish major changes in the national treatment of acute, chronic, intractable, malignant and non-malignant pain. But, most importantly, it exists to guarantee that no legitimate pain patient is denied adequate and effective medical care. If the Foundation cannot find patient’s local medical treatment, it will treat the patients at the National Clinic, in Houston, Texas.
As such, it is the only organization in the United States that pain patients may call for actual, direct intervention and help. It daily responds to the specific needs of individual pain patients, while simultaneously working to affect public policy.
Mark Barletta
National Coordinator
12.16.2009
