When Doctors Stop Caring: The Quiet Crisis in Chronic Pain Care

Just a quick update : Before she went on leave, my GP assured me that the alternate GP at the clinic would continue prescribing my pain medications without issue.

I’ve been on the same treatment plan for over five years, nothing has changed. Still, when I saw the alternate GP, she only agreed to prescribe one box of immediate-release oxycodone. After discussion, and with my support worker – a witness - present, she reluctantly agreed to two follow-up scripts via phone: one on the following Monday, and another on Thursday.

This already meant I’d be without medication for two separate 48-hour stretches. That’s if she followed through.

She didn’t.

She called on Monday as planned and issued the second box. After two days without pain medication, I was grateful. But Thursday came and went without a word. She knew I would be out of medication. She knew I would be in terrible pain. And yet, she didn’t call. Didn’t write the script. Didn’t care.

I don’t believe she forgot. The first call was entered into the appointment system; the second was not. That wasn’t an oversight, it was a choice. Her choice. A quiet decision to let me suffer. A silent refusal of care.

I understand she doesn’t want to prescribe opioids. I’ve known this for a while. She made that very clear the last time my regular GP was away. She specifically told me never to return. But I have no other choice.

And personal beliefs shouldn’t interfere with clinical responsibility. She agreed to cover my GP’s caseload, and yet she appears to be cherry-picking who is worthy of care. People on long-term opioid therapy, it seems, don’t make the cut.

This GP likely believes she’s doing the “right” thing, tapering me by omission. Letting the medication run out to “prove” I can manage without it. That’s what she’s been taught. But it’s wrong. It’s not just incorrect, it’s inhumane.

I called the clinic Friday morning just in case a script had been written. Nothing. The receptionist said she’d follow up with the doctor.

Four hours later, the GP finally called.

“Hello, it is Dr. B,” she said, cold and clipped.

I started to thank her, but she cut me off. “Name and date of birth.”

I gave my details.

“Do you give me permission to open your file?”

“Yes, tha—”

“How many pills do you have left?”

“None, I—”

“The script will be ready in ten minutes.” Click.

That was it. A five-sentence exchange. Not even a goodbye. She hung up on me. She did the bare minimum…just enough to avoid a complaint. Enough to maintain plausible deniability. Enough to avoid professional consequences. She provided the script.

But not enough to hide the disdain. The disgust. And enough to let me know she was doing this under duress.

She didn’t want to help me.

That much was crystal clear. She didn’t want to treat me. She wanted to be anywhere else. And honestly, I understand her position. She’s a doctor. It is her choice who she helps and who she does not help.

She’s been trained, wrongly, to believe opioids are always harmful. That people like me are addicts, not patients. That chronic pain is best treated with psychology, not pharmacology.

But I am not an addict.

I am a person with a progressive, painful, incurable disease. I live with constant, severe neuropathic and nociceptive pain. I am losing the use of my arms and legs. I can no longer walk without assistance. I am losing my vision. My hearing. I am incontinent. My muscles are weakening every day. And when I ask for help, when I ask for the only medication that gives me some quality of life, I am treated with suspicion. With contempt. Like garbage.

Ten years ago, I would have been treated with empathy. Today, I am a problem no one wants to deal with. A nuisance. A liability.

This is what happens when medical guidelines are built on ideology, and personal opinion, not evidence. When doctors are taught that pain isn’t real or severe if it’s chronic. That opioids don’t work, despite decades of evidence to the contrary. That the “risks” outweigh the benefits, even for those of us with progressive, incurable diseases and no alternatives.

This is the end result of Explain Pain. Of addiction medicine overreach. Of researchers who manufactured an opioid crisis in Australia. Of the myth that all pain is just “an output of the brain.” Of public policy written by those who have never lived a day in pain. Of erasing chronic secondary pain from the narrative.

I now have my third box of medication, enough to get me to Monday when my regular GP returns. But the damage is done. These last two weeks have been hell. I have been in agonising pain. I’ve missed work. I’ve been trapped in couch jail, unable to function. Not because my disease got worse, but because a doctor chose not to treat me. Chose not to care.

And that choice was enabled by a system that rewards cruelty in the name of caution.

I’ve written to the health minister and my local MP. I’ve explained that opioid access in Australia is now so tightly controlled that patients are being abandoned. That opioids are now over-regulated. That guidelines are based on cherry-picked data and distorted interpretations. That doctors are being misled, lied to, and patients are paying the price.

If this has happened to you, please reach out. DM or post below. You are not alone. We must fight this together.

The science is on our side.


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