JUST because you can't see pain doesn't mean it isn't there.

Powerful words today, from a woman who knows what she is talking about. Linda Hatton, chairwoman of the York Pain Management Support Group, has suffered from arthritis and agonising back pain for years.

Today, she speaks out against health bosses' plans to cut back on pain-relieving injections for those suffering from chronic back pain. The "cruellest cut", she calls the proposals.

York Hospital has an outstanding pain management clinic. Yet now, because of the multi-million pound debt faced by the local primary care trust (PCT), it can no longer give joint injections to those with chronic back pain, except in "exceptional cases".

This seems wrong on so many fronts. People who have never suffered back pain cannot fully appreciate how crippling it can be. Every movement can be an agony: every moment filled with disabling pain. Back pain is one of the commonest reasons for absence from work.

Sufferers may be bed-bound, or require support in the form of home care or disability allowance. The PCT may not have to pay for that care - but the taxpayer certainly does.

So even on economic grounds it doesn't make sense to deny sufferers treatment. Add to that the demands of common humanity, that we should do all we can to relieve suffering, and the case for continuing the treatments is overwhelming.

PCT bosses proved last week they are willing to listen to reason, when they changed their minds over MRI back scans - deciding they would be available after all. We would urge them to think again on painkilling injections. Both economics and common humanity demand they do.