Martha Lucia Franco Garrido, Executive Director, the Colombian Association for Palliative Care, describes how an IAHPC grant will help them to expand the reach and impact of their work in Colombia.
In August 2014, the President of the Republic of Colombia signed the Palliative Care Law. This was an historic moment in Colombia as this law enforced the right of people with terminal, chronic, degenerative and irreversible diseases to receive palliative care. Yet, in spite of this advance, there was a clear lack of public and professional awareness of palliative care, and of the scope of the new law, there was a lack of health professionals trained in palliative care, and there was no regulation that guaranteed access to opioids for pain control. Thus, in order to implement much-needed changes and make palliative care a reality in Colombia, it was decided to establish the Colombian Association for Palliative Care (ASOCUPAC). We currently have a large number of multidisciplinary partners and, together with other national organizations, we are working to achieve this dream.
Since its creation in 2014, the Colombian Association for Palliative Care has strengthened the growth of palliative care in Colombia through:
In September 2015, we successfully applied for an IAHPC Program Support Grant. The purpose of the grant was to provide support to ASOCUPAC by covering the salary of the executive director for one year (2016). This would enable her to focus on strategies to ensure the financial income to sustain the activities of the organization in the future: expand the membership base and increase membership revenue, establish collaborative agreements with universities that are implementing palliative care programs (a percentage of the registration fees is allocated to ASOCUPAC), identify and nurture relationships with potential donors, and promote courses and activities.
We also set ourselves the following objectives:
The executive director is wholly responsible for the management and coordination of the board and the success of the growth of the organization.
We planned a variety of events designed to ensure financial sustainability during 2016. These included conferences with international experts, a benefit concert to commemorate World Hospice and Palliative Care Day and informal educational programs to promote, implement and disseminate palliative care among healthcare providers in Colombia. We also signed agreements with universities to run courses for graduates (120 hours) and Masters students and raised income through membership and a palliative care congress.
The reach of the project will be measured in a variety of ways, for example: an increased number of palliative care providers and services throughout the country; the increased number of members of our association; the number of people that have been trained through continuing education across the country; the amount of revenue generated by events and the growth in followers on our website and social media networks. Together, these will help us to widen the coverage and impact of the Colombian Association for Palliative Care.
We are delighted to report that with the support of the IAHPC Program Support Grant, we are making good progress in realizing the goal that we set ourselves back in September 2015: to increase awareness and education about palliative care in Colombia so that patients in need will have access to services where they live, regardless of age, diagnosis or gender.
To find out more about IAHPC’s Program Support Grants, and our Traveling Scholarships and Traveling Fellowships, please visit our website. Through these programs we support projects and individuals around the world, especially in developing countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America.
You can contribute to this program and help palliative care workers attend and participate in congresses and courses by donating to the Traveling Scholarships Campaign in the Global Giving website.
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