Palliative Care
What We Do › Palliative Care
“I was really shocked during my first visit to a hospice in St. Louis. In my country the philosophy was different . . . you just didn’t tell a patient the truth about a bad prognosis. But I saw that the terminal patients weren’t suffering under the burden of this knowledge. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying life despite their illnesses. I saw that these patients were really very happy and satisfied.”
Rasele Saca, physician, Bikur Holim Hospital in Riga, Latvia (Riga, Latvia/St. Louis, Missouri, partnership)
While palliative care services are a common provision of healthcare in much of the West, they remain almost wholly unavailable to patients in transitioning and developing countries. It isn’t just that health professionals in these countries lack the resources and training needed to provide palliative care, but that their view of healthcare is more traditional and narrower in scope.
According to the Center for Palliative Care Education at the University of Washington, palliative care services should be offered throughout the course of a chronic or life-threatening illness, including at the end of life, to treat, prevent, relieve, or reduce symptoms without affecting a cure. Palliative care is not intended to replace disease-fighting treatments, such as chemotherapy for cancer or antiretrovirals for HIV, but to augment comfort and support to individuals who are living with long-term illness and their families. Palliative care also plays close attention to the medical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs pf patients and their families.
AIHA is proud of its accomplishments in helping healthcare providers at our partner institutions overseas implement the patient-centered philosophy and practices of palliative care. Our partnerships and other related activities build local capacity to allow healthcare professionals to integrate palliative care into the clinical services they are already providing.
Projects
AIHA’s efforts to improve palliative care services through specific programmatic activities include:
Riga (Latvia)/St. Louis (Missouri) Partnershipt
In a country where medical professionals have traditionally shielded even adult patients from bad news by withholding diagnoses of life-threatening illnesses, these children's books are subtle evidence of big change. Created by the pediatric palliative care team at Children's Clinical Hospital in Riga, Latvia, "The Story of Me" helps care providers talk to young cancer patients about their illness. The book is but a small example of how an AIHA partnership between Riga and St. Louis, Missouri, ushered in a whole new perspective on caring for sick children and adults. Read more...
Partnerships with the African Palliative Care Association
The African Palliative Care Association (APCA) was founded in June 2004 to promote the availability of palliative care for those affected by HIV/AIDS. AIHA’s HIV/AIDS Twinning Center is partnering with APCA to provide technical assistance in curriculum development, information and communication technology, and other areas crucial to APCA’s ability to serve as a regional resource. Read more...
HIV/AIDS Treatment, Care, and Support Partnerships in Russia
In July 2004, AIHA received USAID funding to establish HIV/AIDS partnerships in four high-burden oblasts. These partnerships are working to create comprehensive, integrated model programs for providing prevention, care, treatment, and social support services to people living with HIV/AIDS in Russia. Because palliative care has emerged as a discipline that requires further development, AIHA and our partners have conducted a number of capacity building training exercises. To read more about the importance of palliative care as a crucial component of HIV/AIDS treatment and support. Read more...
Regional Knowledge Hub for the Care and Treatment of HIV/AIDS in Eurasia
Because palliative care is such an integral part of any comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment and support program, the Regional Knowledge Hub for the Care and Treatment of HIV/AIDS in Eurasia has developed a clinical training course on the subject. This course is in keeping with the Regional Knowledge Hub’s goal to build the human and organizational capacity necessary to provide high-quality care to people living with HIV/AIDS in the nations of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Since December 2003, the Regional Knowledge Hub for the Care and Treatment of HIV/AIDS in Eurasia has been providing technical assistance to countries in the region as they work to address one of the fastest growing rates of new HIV infections in the world. To date, the Knowledge Hub has trained nearly 2,000 healthcare professionals from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan in various aspects of providing care and treatment to people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.
The Knowledge Hub’s HIV/AIDS Palliative Care Course is based on WHO’s Protocols on HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment for CIS Countries (March 2004) and other evidence-based resources, as well as relevant national protocols and policies. The course targets HIV/AIDS care teams comprised of physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, and allied caregivers and covers palliative care options for adults and children.
Slovakia/Scranton (Pennsylvania) Partnership
The concepts of palliative care and hospice are virtually in their infancy in many countries. Such is the case in Slovakia, where the term “hospice” first appeared in legislative documents in April 2000 and standards for the provision of palliative care followed suit more than two years later in August 2002. A handful of practitioners at Trnava University Hospital—member institution of AIHA’s Slovakia/Scranton partnership—refused to sit by and quietly accept the suffering of their fellow man. Instead they opened one of the country’s first hospices in December 2003. Read more...
Conferences and Workshops
AIHA Palliative Care Workshop – St. Petersburg, Russia (March 20-24, 2006)
AIHA Palliative Care Workshop – Moscow, Russia (April 26-29, 2005)
Palliative Care Information Resources
Disseminating accurate, timely information rooted in evidence-based practices and sharing successful models and lessons learned plays an important role in AIHA’s strategy for sustainable healthcare programs. To learn more about palliative care, please visit the following links:
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