Dear Readers:
Last month, Lukas traveled to Kerala, India to participate in IAPCON 2019, a conference hosted by the Indian Association for Palliative Care, while Liliana traveled to Panama to attend the launch in Central American countries of the Lancet Commission Report on Global Access to Pain Treatment and Palliative Care. Lukas provides an overview of the IAPCON conference in this month’s feature article.
The government of Panama’s Caja de Seguro Social and the Ministry of Health sponsored this launch of the Lancet Report, with representatives from ministries of health from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico (in addition to those from Panama). The meeting was cohosted by the Latin American Association for Palliative Care (ALCP) and the IAHPC.
Dr. Miguel Mayo, the Minister of Health from Panama, opened the meeting and welcomed participants, with strong supportive words for palliative care and its importance in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Dr. Felicia Knaul, Director of the Lancet Commission, then summarized the findings and recommendations of the report. These presentations were followed by one on essential medicines (by Liliana); the situation in Latin America (by Dr. Tania Pastrana, president of the ALCP); and the role that national associations have in the development of policies in their countries, as strategic partners of their governments (by Katherine Pettus). The next day, we heard from representatives of participating countries on the situation and advances as well as challenges they face in the development of policies, improving access to medicines, and improving palliative care education.
We are very grateful to Mrs. Myrna McLaughlin, RN, and doctors Nisla Camaño, MD, and Gaspar Da Costa, MD, for their collaboration and excellent planning that led to a very fruitful meeting. We hope that recommendations issued by the Commissioners and suggestions by representatives of civil society organizations will lead to significant changes in national policies, improving access for patients with palliative care needs.
And last — but certainly not least — we are very pleased to welcome the newly elected members to the IAHPC Board of Directors:
Claudia Burlá (Brazil): Claudia, a native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is a licensed Geriatrician with certification in Palliative Medicine and a PhD in Bioethics (University of Porto, Portugal). She was elected a full member of the Rio de Janeiro Academy of Medicine in 2010. She brings clinical expertise in caring for older persons and frail patients to the IAHPC.
Dingle Spence (Jamaica): Dingle Spence is a Jamaican physician with training in both Clinical Oncology and Palliative Medicine. Dr. Spence is the Senior Medical Officer of the Hope Institute Hospital, Jamaica's only dedicated oncology and palliative care unit. She is also an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston. In 2005 she instigated and continues to teach an introductory course in palliative medicine for medical students at the University.
Ebtesam (Sammi) Ahmed (Egypt, USA): Currently, Ebtesam (Sammi) Ahmed is Clinical Professor for the Department of Clinical Health Professions at St. John’s University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in New York. Since 2014, Dr. Ahmed has been very active in teaching pharmacists, physicians and health care professionals around the world; she has enacted numerous training workshops for pharmacists in Egypt, Guatemala, and Kyrgyzstan.
Eve Namisango (Uganda): Eve Namisango is Research Manager at the African Palliative Care Association and a BUILDcare PhD Fellow at Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London. Eve also coordinates the 170-member African Palliative Care Research Network and teaches Research Methodology at the Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care in Uganda. She has a background in economics with master’s degrees in clinical epidemiology and biostatics and in palliative care.
Gulnara Kunirova (Kazakhstan): Gulnara is the president and one of the founders of the Kazakhstan Association for Palliative Care and brings the perspective of an advocate to the IAHPC. Gulnara is also the current Executive Director of Together Against Cancer, an NGO aimed at the improvement of cancer care in Kazakhstan including efficient prevention, treatment rehabilitation, and palliative care. She earned a degree in International Relations and World Languages at the University of Kazakh State, and has been instrumental in advancing palliative care in Kazakhstan.
Harmala Gupta (India): In 1985 Harmala was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After recovery, she felt it was her mission to create compassionate and caring support services for people with cancer and their families and so, in 1996, she founded ‘CanSupport,’ which has pioneered a free, home-based palliative care service for the neediest. It operates in New Delhi and the National Capital Region, looking after up to 2,000 people living with cancer and their families at any one time. Harmala brings a much-needed patient perspective to the IAHPC board.
Hibah Osman (Lebanon, USA): Hibah is Director of the Palliative and Supportive Care Program at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, and a palliative care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In 2010 she founded Balsam – the Lebanese Center for Palliative Care — an NGO that provides home-based palliative care, and has worked to raise awareness among policy makers, health providers, and in the community. Her efforts led to the recognition of palliative care as a medical specialty in Lebanon in 2013. She is founding Director of the Palliative and Supportive Care Program at the American University of Beirut Medical Center’s Naef K. Basile Cancer Institute, the first hospital-based palliative care program in Lebanon.
Nahla Gafer (Sudan): Nahla is a clinical oncologist at Khartoum Oncology Hospital. Since 2009, and after attending the Hospice Africa Uganda initiators course, she was involved in developing palliative care services at her center and nationwide. In 2015 she completed a Fellowship in Pain & Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin and helped secure constant supplies of oral morphine for several hospitals in Sudan. She is involved in regional training; in 2016, a six-week course, ‘Palliative Care for Health Professionals,’ received approval from the Sudanese Ministry of Higher Education and is now offered regularly. To date, more than 200 health professionals have completed the course.
Steven Radwany (USA): Steven (Skip) is a Fellow and Laureate of the American College of Physicians and of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, with certification in Internal Medicine (since 1986), Geriatric Medicine (since 1992) and Hospice and Palliative Medicine (since 1997). Skip received the Gerald Holman Distinguished Service Award from the American Academy in Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) in 2015 and the Gold Humanism Award from NEOMED’s students in 2010. He completed his medical training at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Evanston Hospital in Chicago. Since 2014 he has been part of the AAHPM workgroup developing curricular milestones, and reporting subspecialty-specific milestones for hospice and palliative medicine.
You can read their full bios here. We look forward to a lot of great opportunities for collaboration and work with this great team of leaders from around the world!
Until next month,
Lukas Radbruch, MD
Chair, Board of Directors
Liliana De Lima, MHA
Executive Director
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