She says, “The tremendous amount of traction we have achieved in such a short period of time, and a difficult industry, is testament to the hard work, agility, and resilience of my fantastic team.”
Hubble is a nurse and clinical educator with a masters degree in pain medicine and more than 20 years of clinical experience working with people living with chronic pain.
In Australia, 3.2 million people suffer from chronic pain costing $139 billion per year. Hubble says she was frustrated that more than 80% of people couldn't access evidence-based care, and the education
of health professionals is not changing practice where it counts.
According to Hubble, two out of three surgeries on chronic pain patients are avoidable, it affects one fifth of the general population and is the leading cause of disability worldwide.
In addition, opioids are not a long-term solution for chronic pain, yet they remain over-prescribed for many patients. Furthermore, every year more than 1,000 preventable deaths occur from opioid overdose.
Hubble says, “I was frustrated that I could only provide my program face-to-face to 10 people at a time over an eight week period. Also, outside of metropolitan areas, people have no access to specialist
pain services.
"Accessing treatment often involves delays of months or years and requires patients to attend residential services away from their families. They are then sent back home with inadequate support.
"GPs who often lack the skills, knowledge and resources to manage such a complex problem resort to prescribing opioids. Over one thousand deaths per year result from opioid overdose. This is an
avoidable tragedy."
"In spite of the accumulating pain management science, best practice approaches are not being widely adopted," she says.
Whilst working as a return to work specialist in the insurance industry, Hubble says she experienced
the problems of providing services to people living with persistent pain from the perspective of third
party funders.