Tuesday, May 24, 2022, 4:00 pm News Flash Archive

The Pain Management Center at the Greenwood Leflore Hospital is closing July 8, 2022, leaving the community with no local access to treatment for chronic pain in an outpatient setting.

The clinic's closing is due to its physician director, Ahmed Abdel-Aziz, MD, deciding not to renew his contract and planning to move out of state.

According to the GLH website, "Dr. Aziz specializes in pain associated with cancer, diabetes related pain, chronic back pain, osteoarthritis, herniated discs, degenerative disc disease, painful joint, fibromyalgia, headaches and pain as a result of injury."

Dr. Aziz obtained his medical degree at the University of Mansura in Egypt in 1990. He completed an Anesthesia Residency at UMMC in 2000.

Dr. Aziz's impending departure has been known in the medical community since as early as January of this year.

According to GLH's public relations director Christine Hemphill, Dr. Aziz gave notice in April 2022 that he did not intend to renew his contract with the hospital.

In a letter signed by Dr. Aziz and sent to the clinic's current patients on May 10, 2022, Dr. Aziz stated: "at this time, we have not been able to secure a replacement provider to take my place. As a result, Greenwood Pain Management Center will be closing for business."

The letter further explained that patients will need to make arrangements to be treated at some other clinic, and outlined the process for transferring their records to their new physician after they have found one.

The loss of the pain clinic in Greenwood will cause distress for those patients who have chronic, and sometimes excruciating pain, that can only be controlled with steroid injections or drugs such as opioids. Because of the recent growing concerns about narcotics addiction and abuse, the GLH pain clinic was often the only provider of such essential treatments, since most physicians have stopped prescribing highly addictive medications, and instead refer their patients with intractable pain to the pain clinic.

Treatment for pain on an in-patient basis (that is, patients who are actually admitted to the hospital for surgery or other procedures) will continue to be available.

John Pittman Hey
The Taxpayers Channel

News Flash Archive