I mentioned this thread to my hubbie, 'cos I was so appalled... He agrees it is absolutely disgraceful.

Being unusually well-informed on such things, he had some suggestions I thought worth mentioning here, such as:

What about other types of pain relief?

• There are drugs that are not so hard on the liver; is there some reason she can't be given one of those?

• There are also non-drug types of pain relief, like TENS, where causing sensation in/to another part of the body, like the spine, can help diminish the pain by distracting the brain with an alternative sensation (this has worked for me in the past when I had unusually bad menstrual cramps; my husband would stroke my spine and it helped a great deal).

• What about an epidural, or gas (nitrous oxide) and air?

He adds, "Don't US hospitals have a specialist pain nurse (or team), or is that something we only have here in the UK with our "backwards" socialised medicine?"