Membership Matters

Volume 23, Number 3: March 2022

One Member’s Story: Winifred Otoo, Ghana

Photo supplied by Winifred Otto. Used with permission.

By Genevieve Napier
IAHPC Senior Operations Officer

As a post-graduate student at the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives, Winifred Otoo was eligible for a free IAHPC membership. After she graduated in December, she chose to continue her association with the IAHPC by paying for an individual membership.

Winifred shared her journey in palliative care with me.

“My nursing career was built on a strong chronic care foundation, although the issue of which specialty I would love to practice never came easy to me until quite very recently. After over a decade of practice—and accidentally or by default climbing the chronic care academic ladder—I decided to focus on palliative care after I had the opportunity to observe the nursing team of my foster mother, Donna, until her peaceful death at home.

“That experience ignited a strong passion towards palliative care in me; all the lectures and encounters on palliative care and end of life became a reality.

“The heart to accomplish my new-found mission in life led me to a self-sponsored and self-initiated residency in palliative care with the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives. In spite of unsolicited institutional challenges with my residency, the passion of palliating has never left my heart and grace has forged me through it all. I currently work with the Ghana Palliative Care Association as a volunteer and have started working to create a palliative care center in Accra.”


Members’ Impact

Fondazione ANT research team. Photo supplied by Silvia Varani. Used with permission.

Melania Raccichini, Luca Franchini, Silvia Varani, and Raffaella Pannuti, representatives of the Fondazione ANT Italia Onlus (a lifetime institutional member), were four of the seven coauthors of Identifying the Prevalence of Unmet Supportive Care Needs among Family Caregivers of Cancer Patients: an Italian investigation on home palliative care setting, published in the January 9 issue of Supportive Care in Cancer. The data for this research article was collected through a questionnaire given to 251 family caregivers.

Tania Pastrana, IAHPC Research and Academic Advisor, along with fellow IAHPC members Luc Deliens, Vilma Adriana Tripodoro, Diane A. Dykeman-Sabado, Nineth Carolina Baltodano Algaba, and Gabriela Píriz Alvarez were among 19 coauthors of a research article published in the Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública in December 2021. Feasibility of using death certificates for studying place of death in Latin America was conducted by analyzing death certificates and digital data files on deaths of 19 Latin American countries from June 2019 through May 2020.

A letter published in the February issue of Lancet Public Heath, Community-Based Participatory Research in Palliative Care: A social justice imperative, was written by William Rosa and two other authors. He is also a coauthor of “It's Rougher on Me Than It Is on Him”: Family caregiver–generated and prioritized illness concerns while patients undergo cancer treatments, published in JCO Oncology Practice in November 2021.

Kathleen Foley, Eric Krakauer, and Stephen Connor have collaborated on a GeriPal podcast that aired in February. The topic of the episode (#206) is “International Palliative Care.” Topics in the podcast include the needs, necessity, barriers, and models of providing palliative care worldwide.

If you have a recently published article or a notable achievement that you wish to share with your IAHPC colleagues, please contact Genevieve Napier.


Members in This Month’s Newsletter

The IAHPC leadership would like to thank the many members who participated in stories and columns in this month’s newsletter.

Advocacy and Policy
Grants in Action
IAHPC News
Feature Story
Members’ Impact

Links to IAHPC programs mentioned above: Global Consensus-Based Palliative Care Definition, Opioid Price Watch, Global Palliative Care Database and the COVID-19 Briefing Notes.


List of Members

A list of individuals who joined, or renewed their membership with, IAHPC during the past month.

Membership renewals
Name Country
Anam Cara House Colac Inc Australia
Barry R. Ashpole Canada
Stephen Claxton-Oldfield Canada
Maria Cuervo Colombia
CanSupport India
Harmala Gupta India
Kuljinder Behgal India
Pallium India India
SANAD-The Home Hospice Organization of Lebanon Lebanon
ATLANTES Global Palliative Care Observatory Spain
Fernando G Chamath Sri Lanka
Organisation Jeunesse pour le Developpement Communautaire (ORJEDEC) Togo
Thana Harhara United Arab Emirates
New members
Name Country
Cynthia Holzmann Koehler Brazil
Dominique Dion Canada
Anastasios Kantianis Greece
Lashistha Parthab South Africa
Huiju Liang Taiwan, China
Awassada Punyashthira Thailand
Angella Namatovu Uganda
Brian Nambale Uganda
Martina Rekatsina United Kingdom
Palliative, Rehabilitation & Integrative Medicine at the MD Anderson Cancer Center United States

See the full list of IAHPC members


Do you have any questions regarding membership issues?

Contact Ms. Genevieve Napier


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