Regional Workshop on Palliative Care,
EMRO, 17-20 October 2010
The World Health
Organization, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO) in
collaboration with the Euro-Arab School of Oncology (ESO) is planning to
conduct a Regional Workshop on Palliative Care, scheduled to take place
in Cairo, from 17 to 20 October 2010.
Palliative care services in EMR faces many challenges that can be
summarized as follow:
- Limited
Palliative Care
Programmes with
insufficient
quality;
- Insufficient
development of
palliative care
and lack of
awareness of the
“human right to
a peaceful
death” or how to
assure this in
both the health
care community
and the general
public;
- Policies (or
attitudes among
health care
providers)
restricting
access to
opioids, mainly
because of an
over-concern
about drug
abuse.
Furthermore,
policy regarding
who can
prescribe
opioids;
duration of
prescriptions;
and attitudes of
health care
workers to the
administration
of opioids are
not well
reviewed, in
order to
identify
obstacles and
develop
approaches to
overcoming them.
According to the
Regional
Situation
Analysis of
Palliative Care
and guided by
the
recommendations
of the Regional
Cancer control
Strategy, three
priorities for
action have
emerged, which
became our main
objectives for
this Workshop:
- To
develop
human
resources
for
palliative
care;
- To
review
access and
affordability
of
inexpensive
opioids for
cancer
patients;
- To
ensure that
home care
programmes
are given a
high
priority.
22
participants
from EMR,
working in
palliative
care, will
participate
in this
Meeting.
Palliative
care
regional,
international
experts and
GFCC
experts; as
well as
other
colleagues
from Head
Quarters
will
participate
in this
Meeting.
