General Features

A unique pioneering relationship has enabled the Shrewsbury's Severn Hospice to help its Bangalore counterpart to care for seven thousand people suffering from incurable cancers. Shrewsbury staff have helped them to get access to the prime pain control drug morphine - which is still rarely available in India but is a mainstay of British hospices - and shown them how best to administer it.

The twinning arrangement began 15 years ago when Jeremy Johnson, medical director of the Severn Hospice, was standing in a coffee queue at a conference in India. He fell into conversation with Kishore Rao, who had plans to open a hospice in Bangalore, the city where Jeremy had been born.

Since then there has been a steady flow of staff travelling in each direction between Bangalore and Shrewsbury. Nagesh Simha is the medical director of Karunashraya (which means Abode of Care) and has been to Britain several times. "I really learned what palliative care was all about from the time I spent in Shrewsbury. We're very fortunate that Jeremy Johnson really understands our culture and ethos. We've had people from his team come to India time and time again".

Jeremy Johnson says: "The sadness is that India makes most of the medicinal morphine in the world, but the consumption there is very small because of tight, outdated controls and because doctors simply haven't been trained to use it. There's so much unnecessary suffering amongst millions of Indian people."

The programme producer is Chris Eldon Lee, also from Shrewsbury. "In 2005 the United Nations passed a resolution declaring that morphine should be available at all times, in adequate amounts and appropriate dosage for the relief of severe pain anywhere in the world. But frankly, turning that into reality still requires action on many fronts. The twinning arrangement between Shrewsbury and Bangalore is showing the world how to build the foundations of palliative care in countries like India. The Shrewsbury initiative really is alleviating the dreadful suffering of thousands of people."

Karunashraya's founder Kishore Rao is already passing on the experience it has gained from Shrewsbury to other fledgling hospices in southern India. "We now have four other hospices that we are helping to set up. Just as we've got the Severn Hospice to look up to, they've now got us to look up to."

BBC Journalist Mukti Jain Campion reports on how the Severn Hospice twinning relationship is Bridging the Morphine Gap on Radio 4 on Monday 3 March at 9pm. The programme will be available to listen again through BBC iPlayer for seven days after broadcast.