Unheard, unseen, under-served: Placing lived experiences at the heart of palliative care reform - NCD Hard Talk Webinar Series
World Health Organization
Join us to explore ways to engage those with lived experience in palliative care reform, ensuring their active participation, highlighting gaps to address their unmet needs, and helping to inform people centred palliative care policies.
Serious illnesses affect close to 60 million people worldwide, with a disproportionate impact on poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals. There is an urgent need to strengthen the integration of comprehensive, evidence-based, cost-effective, and equitable palliative care services in the continuum of care of these conditions.
In recent years, there has been a renewed momentum around the global palliative care through the passing of a World Health Assembly resolution in 2014. Palliative care should be firmly embedded within the NCD agenda, and palliative care interventions must be included in national benefit packages to achieve universal health coverage.
Palliative care is an essential component of comprehensive care for patients with non-communicable diseases; these conditions often lead to prolonged suffering and complex health needs that go beyond the scope of curative treatments. Palliative care aims to improve the quality of life for patients and their families by addressing physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs. It provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms, helping patients live as comfortably and actively as possible.
The integration of palliative care into NCD management is a crucial consideration to address the growing global burden of these diseases- NCDs are responsible for over 70% of all deaths worldwide, with a significant proportion occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Access to palliative care remains limited in many regions, leading to unnecessary suffering and reduced quality of life for millions of patients. By incorporating palliative care into health systems, we can ensure that patients receive holistic and patient-centered care throughout their illness trajectory.
As health systems worldwide strive to address the challenges posed by NCDs, integrating palliative care into national health policies and action plans is a critical step towards achieving better health outcomes and ensuring that no patient is left behind.
In this NCD Hard Talk, we will explore the key challenges and solutions for the implementation of palliative care, incorporating multi-stakeholders’ experiences including those from the lived experience, governments, and civil society organizations.
Objectives
- Highlight the importance of integrating palliative care as a core component of NCD management to improve quality of life and health outcomes.
- Explore strategies for integration of palliative care into health systems, through country case studies of successful integration with emphasis on participatory approaches for people-centered care.
- Explore key challenges and solutions related to palliative care integration, including financing and ensuring access to controlled medicines (opioids).
- Emphasize the importance of incorporating insights from lived experiences to design innovative, people-centered solutions that address unmet needs and ensure equitable, sustainable palliative care services.
Target Audience:
- Health system planners and policymakers
- NCD program managers
- Healthcare providers and administrators
- Public health professionals
- Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in NCD care