City Cancer Challenge – C/Can shared on LinkedIn:
“Palliative care is an essential part of the cancer journey: it ensures patients can go through their treatment in a dignified way with limited suffering.
However, only 12% of people who need palliative care actually receive it. We already know how to alleviate suffering, how to train professionals, and what policies must be in place to ensure availability of opioids.
The challenge is turning this global guidance and national commitments into services that people can actually access.
This week, C/Can is participating in the World Health Organization -convened Palliative Care Global Action Forum in Seoul, sharing how we’re helping close this implementation gap by strengthening and integrating palliative care in health systems.
Across three WHO regions, C/Can is supporting six palliative care projects, working alongside local health authorities, healthcare professionals and technical partners.
We’re seeing progress take shape:
- In Phnom Penh, supporting the development of palliative care services and training the workforce to support implementation of the recent palliative care national standard operating procedures.
- In Arequipa, supporting a university diploma in palliative and supportive care, with 425 people registered.
- In Nairobi, working with professional bodies to advance recognition of palliative care as a speciality.
- In Arequipa and Nairobi, assessing palliative care services in main health institutions and co-designing a palliative care city strategy.
- In Abuja, Nairobi and Phnom Penh, supporting 23 fellows to attend the palliative care course from the Institute of Palliative Medicine, a WHO Collaborating Centre.
These efforts go beyond isolated interventions. They address the policies, workforce, services and processes needed to make palliative care a functioning part of cancer care systems.
Closing the implementation gap means moving beyond knowing what needs to improve to making those improvements happen.”
This can be interesting about palliative care:
