Help Us Close the Access Abyss to Palliative Care

Each year on the second Saturday in October WHPCA hosts World Hospice & Palliative Care Day. Each year we develop a different theme. This year's theme is Pain Management: An Essential Part of Palliative Care. Over 75% of people worldwide lack access to essential medicines for pain relief. This is due to severe restrictions on access to controlled medicines such as oral morphine, an inexpensive generic medicine needed for pain relief for cancer and other life lliminting illnesses. Palliative care services take great care to ensure these medicines are not misused but it feels awful to have to witness someone in severe pain while they are dying, knowing we could relieve their suffering with the necessary medicines. So, this year we highlighted the problem with a campaign to promote access for palliative care patients without excess. WHPCA has to cover the cost of putting on World Day each year and needs your support to do so. 

This year we had over 200 events in 70 countries to highlight the problem. This coming year we would like to provide support to increase the number of events and countries participating. Attached is a map of recent World Day Events and a photo of a patient living in Tajikistan who was able to get good pain control from the palliative care team there. Please support WHPCA to reach more people who need palliative care and Download our new Global Atlas of Palliative care describing the state of palliative care worldwide from the link below. 

Links:

• Global Atlas of Palliative Care 3rd Edition