This Nurse Takes Care Of Pain Without Prescribing Opioid-Like Drugs

Nurse Nadia Drammeh from the Gambia in West Africa loves to treat pain without any relieving drugs like opioids.

Though the 27-year-old lady deals with different types of patients in the clinic, including people with malaria and pneumonia, she said 80 to 90 percent of individuals come with different body aches: back pain, stomach pain or muscle pain.

"Most of the cases that come here are in pain either physically or psychologically," the nurse told NPR.

But the Drammeh never treated her patients with pain-killing drugs, like opioids. It is not because painkillers were not available in the clinic. It is due to her belief that avoiding drugs is the best way to fight pain.

Drammeh banks on her "nursing skills" to get to the root of the problem when she meets a patient. Typically, she receives a patient and communicates to the individual that the pain will disappear with proper treatment.

"Show the patient that there is life ahead," she said.

Drammeh believes that to reassure a patient, a nurse needs to connect with them and win their trust.

"Tell the patient that this thing is normal, that we have many patients that come here with that problem or even more serious cases than that problem," Drammeh explained. "But they were treated and they've gone home."

Drammeh has always dreamt of becoming a nurse and she was very passionate about it. Her auntie was a nurse and she would visit her clinic to watch her work.

She graduated from nursing school in 2012 and now works at the Brufut health clinic, near Banjul in the Gambia.

The Gambia is among those poorest countries in the world wherein even doctors do not have regular access to drugs like opioids. Some of the most common painkillers available in the country are ibuprofen and paracetamol.