World Hospice and Palliative Care Day - 11 October 2008
What is World Hospice and Palliative care day? World Hospice and Palliative Care day is a unified day of action to celebrate and support hospice and palliative care around the world. It takes place annually on the second Saturday of October every year. It will be commemorated on the 11th of October this year. It is an opportunity to raise awareness, improve access to palliative care and medications, and raise funds for hospice and palliative care in your community. On the first World Hospice and Palliative Care Day in 2005, there were over 1,100 events in 74 countries, and thousands of people from 128 countries around the world signed a global petition calling for better quality care for those affected by terminal illness. It is for anyone and everyone who cares about or is involved in hospice and palliative care, whether a person has a life limiting illness or someone who loves and cares for them. The aims of the day include raising awareness and understanding on the needs of people living with life limiting illnesses and how palliative care can improve their quality of life. Individuals worldwide are called to demand their human right to palliative care.
Theme: The theme this year is ‘Hospice and palliative care: a human right’ highlighting the fact that without access to the care they need, people affected by life limiting illnesses suffer unacceptable levels of distress that amount to a violation of their rights.
Human rights, as defined by numerous national laws, international conventions and consensus statements, align closely with central tenets of palliative care, which seeks to alleviate all forms of unnecessary pain and distress. The commission on human rights resolution 004/26 Item 7c calls on states “to promote effective access to preventive, curative or palliative pharmaceutical products or medical technologies”. Lack of access to pain and symptom relief can prevent people living with HIV and AIDS, who may be experiencing painful and unpleasant side effects from antiretroviral treatments, from adhering to ARVs, with the result that their life expectancy is curtailed. This breaches the right to life.
What is palliative care? Palliative care is the management of the many (physical, psychosocial, spiritual and emotional) needs of people with progressive life limiting illness.
Palliative care:
- Addresses the individuals’ psychological, social, spiritual and practical needs.
- Is not about ‘helping someone die’ but instead about helping someone live as comfortably as possible with their illness. It is supporting those closest to them and adding life to days, whether or not days can be added to lives.
- Is much more than just providing specialist symptom and pain relief - although that is a very important part. It respects the individuals’ wishes and helps them in ways appropriate to them, both individually and culturally.
- Palliative care is flexible, adaptable and does not have to be expensive.
Everyone living with a life limiting illness has the right to quality hospice and palliative care to enable them to live with dignity and without undue pain or distress. In Zimbabwe palliative care is still not widely understood, implemented and not standardized, although it is one of the first countries in Africa to embrace hospice and palliative care concept. However, a variety of settings which include hospices, community home based care and hospitals are making efforts to provide palliative care, to improve the quality of life of patients and their children. Inadequate provision of pain medication has been one of the challenges in provision of palliative care. As such it is critical to improve and scale up palliative care support in Zimbabwe through the public health delivery system.
The Hospice And Palliative Care Association of Zimbabwe (HOSPAZ) together with hospices worldwide are calling for:
- Individuals to participate in World Hospice and Palliative care day to demand their human right to palliative care
- All countries to include palliative care in their national healthcare programmes and to make it available throughout existing healthcare infrastructures
- Greater and more secure funding to support hospice and palliative care services.
- Essential low cost opioid analgesics for pain and symptom control to be made available.
- Adequate care to be provided to people affected by a wide variety of life limiting illnesses, including HIV and cancer
- Increased availability of palliative care for people in all countries - particularly in rural areas and for marginalized groups.
- The integration of hospice and palliative care into all healthcare professionals’ education programmes, both undergraduate and postgraduate
- Palliative care to be provided not as a last resort but concurrently with disease treatment such as ARVs or cancer treatment.
Lets show our support to those with life limiting illnesses and their families on this day!
August 2008 Newsletter
Vol 7 No 1
We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death.
~ David Sarnoff
Contents
- When a Child Dies - A Bereavement Case Study
- What you need to know about Morphine
- Training Beyond Borders - A Namibian Experience
- Changing Fundraising Strategies in Zimbabwe
- Community Paediatric Clinics (CPC)
- Closure of Eileen House
- Nutritional Guide
Annual Report 2006
Vol 6 No 2
“People are like stained glass windows; they sparkle and shine when the sun is out but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Contents
- Chairman’s Report
- Director’s Report
- Community Teams
- Training
- Monitoring & Evaluation
- Fundraising
- Medication and Medical Equipment
- Obituary
Dates to diarise
- Saturday 22nd September 2007
Although faced with many logistical constraints, Street Collection will be held on the 22nd September 2007.
You will find that this year we were unable to cover as many areas as we normally do due to a number of reasons. Some of our volunteers have left the country and others are having difficulties accessing fuel to move from one place to the next, leaving us with few experienced volunteers to cover all areas.
Thank you the Hospice friendly public for the never ending generous support and thank you to the volunteers who will give of both their time and petrol to make our Street Collection a success. - 6th October 2007
Voices for Hospice 2007 – World Palliative Care & Hospice Day.
June 2006 Newsletter
Vol 5 No 1
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
~ Rumi
Contents
- Chairman’s Report
- Director’s Report
- Community Teams – 2005
- Working with Chiedza in the areas of Budiriro, Mufakose and Glen View
- Training
International Journal of Palliative Nursing Awards 2007
The International Journal of Palliative Nursing Awards 2007 sponsored by MacMillan Cancer Support will highlight and reward excellence in evidence-based palliative care. These awards recognize not only individual commitment and achievement but they have become a staging post for the specialty of palliative care nursing.A panel of well-respected judges will pay particular attention to initiative and enterprise in palliative care in which the care of patients is paramount.
Multidisciplinary Teamwork Award
Good palliative care depends on teamwork between health-care professionals, patients and carers. The aim of this award is to highlight inspirational multidisciplinary working. Entrants should submit articles showing how groups of people have worked together to make a difference to the care of patients and those close to them. The articles may discuss the difficult process of developing an effective team and of overcoming barriers. Alternatively, the focus may be on systems that facilitate the communication of the information needed for different professions to bring their skills to help patients. Examples of cross-disciplinary learning and support will also be considered.
IJPN…Promoting Excellence across the Palliative Care Team
Our new website
Island Hospice is delighted to introduce you to our new website design. Watch this space as we keep you up-to-date with our latest news.
March 2007 Newsletter
Vol 6 No 1
Contents
- Reflections on losing a loved one: The experiences of Island Hospice Service staff.
- With children in mind: How children of Island Hospice Service staff have coped/are coping with their losses.
- The Parirenyatwa Pain Clinic and Palliative Care Clinic.
- Standard Chartered Bank Children’s Support Project: HIV/ AIDS and Psychological Interventions for Infected and Affected Children and Adolescents.
- Staff News
- Val’s visit to S. Coast Hospice, Natal
Dates to diarise
- Saturday 28th July 2007
Island Hospice Service Street Collection. Watch out for our wonderful volunteers, who will be collecting for us, and please give generously so we can help as many people as possible. - 6th October 2007
Voices for Hospice 2007 – World Palliative Care & Hospice Day. More details will appear in our next newsletter.