Message from the Chair
&
Executive Director
Kathleen M. Foley, MD (USA)
Liliana De Lima, MHA (USA)
Dear readers:
Welcome to our February IAHPC Newsletter.
As we mentioned in previous editions, IAHPC submitted the IAHPC List of Essential Medicines in Palliative Care to the World Health Organization (WHO). The List will be reviewed by the WHO Expert Committee on Essential Medicines at a meeting next month in Geneva. We hope that during this meeting the members of the committee will approve our proposed medications and include it in WHO’s Model List. We believe that the inclusion of this list in the Palliative Care section of the Model List will serve as a powerful political and advocacy tool to persuade governments and administrators to improve the availability and access to these medications.
The success of this project is largely dependent on our joint efforts to disseminate and distribute the List. To date, articles have been published, or approved for publication, in several peer-reviewed journals including Palliative Medicine, Annals of Oncology, Journal of Palliative Medicine, Supportive Oncology, Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing and Journal of Pain and Symptom Management as well as in many organizational newsletters. We express our sincere thanks to the editors of these journals and newsletters for their interest and support, and for including an article on the IAHPC List in their publications.
The IAHPC List of Essential Medicines is available in our website at www.hospicecare.com Click on the IAHPC List icon and it will take you to a page where the process for the development of the list is described as well as the List.
We hope that this List will serve as a guide for other groups and programs and that its application will improve the quality of life of patients with progressive, incurable conditions. We encourage palliative care workers to send to us their suggestions as to how this List may be improved.
This edition of the Newsletter includes an important announcement from Dr. Willem Scholten, Medicines Division of WHO, on the report of the Thirty-fourth Expert Committee on Drug Dependence. The report covers issues of access to controlled medicines for legitimate medical use, including opioids for the treatment of severe pain, the impact of international controls on medical availability of substances, and the barriers that are inadvertently created by the application of national laws and regulations. Dr. Scholten’s announcement includes a link to the report and WHO’s new website for the Medicines Program. We encourage you to visit and use this document with your governments and national drug regulators to improve access to controlled medications for your patients.
Donations and gifts to IAHPC:
We wish to offer our thanks to the following donors for their contribution to our Clearing House Program: Lisa Pelzek Braun from the Medical College of Wisconsin, Pam Bennett from Purdue Pharma, and Judy Lentz from the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) for their donations of journals and publications to the IAHPC Clearing House Program. Their donations will help improve access to new information which is extremely expensive in developing countries. We will be sending a new shipment of journals in March to programs, hospices, academic hospitals and others. If you are not included in our list of beneficiaries, please contact us. More information about the Clearing House program, and on how you can become involved, is available in our website in
http://www.hospicecare.com/ch/
IAHPC Grants:
* An IAHPC Traveling Fellowship grant was awarded this month to Dr. Parag Bharadwaj, San Diego , USA , to support his travel and educational activities at Bhaktivedanta Hospital in Mumbai , India . This travel is part of a project to assess the need and viability of a palliative care program in a suburban hospital in Mumbai.
* Five IAHPC Traveling Scholarships were awarded to the following individuals:
Dr. Tamari Rukhadze from the National Cancer Center in Tiblisi, Georgia, to support her travel to San Diego Hospice and the Palliative Care International’s Palliative Medicine Fellowship Training Program under the direction of Dr. Frank Ferris. Dr. Rukhadze will use this time to learn new organizational skills in order to implement a palliative care program at the National Cancer Center in Georgia.
Dr. Msemo Diwani from Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to support his travel to Johannesburg, South Africa. During this time, Dr. Diwani will visit the Pediatric Palliative Care program under the leadership of Dr. Michelle Merring. This travel will provide Dr. Diwani with the opportunity to visit and learn from Dr Merring and her pediatric palliative care unit and is also part of his requirement for the completion of his Master’s Degree in Palliative Care at the University of Cape Town. As some of you may know, Dr. Diwani is one of the beneficiaries of the IAHPC Faculty Development Program which has been going on for the last three years and has helped to partially cover the cost of his salary at ORCI (see report below).
Dr. Aarti Patel, a radiation oncologist from Bhopal Memorial Hospital in Karondh, Bhopal, India and Dr. Han Su from the Department of Palliative Medicine at West China Fourth Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu both received awards. China received two traveling scholarships to attend the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN) Diploma in Palliative Care course offered by Flinders University in Singapore.
Dr. Anabelle de Guzman, from Mission Hospital and president of Hospice and Family Care Foundation in Iloilo City in The Philippines received a Traveling Scholarship to visit the Department of Palliative Care at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for one month.
We look forward to their reports after they return and hope that these grants, and especially the courses, training programs and visiting opportunities will give these palliative care leaders the additional skills and knowledge to improve palliative care in their own countries.
Our grants for the Traveling Scholarships and Fellowship Programs are awarded to the best possible candidates taking into consideration several factors, including their ability to use the new experience and knowledge after they return home. The selection of the candidates is performed by a committee of five board members after a careful review of all applications. Additional information about this program can be found in the IAHPC website at
http://www.hospicecare.com/Travellscholars/
IAHPC Participation in Meetings:
* In about two weeks we will participate with a booth at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) and the Annual Assembly of the Palliative Nurses Association (APHN) held February 14-17 in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you plan to be there, please stop by our booth and learn how you can help in the promotion and development of hospice and palliative care around the world.
IAHPC Membership
- Many of you should have received emails or letters in the mail with your notice of membership dues. Please review the status of your membership with IAHPC. If you are not a member, consider joining. The membership dues provide an important and valuable source of support to IAHPC and helps us help individuals and programs around the world. We have adopted a simpler membership sliding scale and we are offering a free copy of the MD Anderson Palliative Care Manual to those whose dues are $75 or more. To become a member, or renew, visit http://www.hospicecare.com/join.htm.The application is on a secured server, so your information will be safe. If you prefer to send your application via regular mail or fax, the forms can be also downloaded from our website in the same link above.
Sincerely,
Kathy Foley, MD
Chair, Board of Directors
Liliana De Lima, MHA
Executive Director
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