Providing Palliative Care in Kenya

Jambo!

Our last update was in February. I’m not sure where to begin. It seem like it was a lifetime ago in a world far, far away. I do hope all of you are safe and weathering the pandemic. For those in the US, I hope you are coping with the challenging events of the past week.

The pandemic has clearly changed our plans but not our agenda or determination. A number of palliative care physicians, including myself, were scheduled to be in Eldoret in April and May. Unfortunately, we are not able to go. That has left the heavy lifting to our Kenyan colleague Dr. Hussein Elias and the palliative care team at MTRH. Besides the clinical care they provide, Dr. Elias is organizing training sessions for Community Health Workers (CHW). These individuals are embedded in rural communities and are often the first, and sometimes only, contact patients have with medical professionals. The trainings were planned before COVID-19 and are focused on educating the CHW on palliative care and connecting them with palliative care providers. While the number of cases of COVID-19 remains low in Western Kenya, special safety precautions will be taken during the training. Moreover, the training will include education about COVID-19.

THE NEXT BIG THING. Currently, the medical school associated with our efforts does not have a faculty member to lead palliative care. With our financial support, a position is being developed, I feel this is the most important assistance we can give to improving pain and symptom management in Western Kenya. A palliative care faculty member will not only impact direct patient care but will also play a critical role in educating students at all level of medical training. The impact will be truly exponential. Any assistance you can provide in allowing helping us create this position will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks as always for your moral and financial support. Please, stay safe!

Ken

Jambo! I send Greetings to all of you who share in our vision of improved Palliative Care in 2020!

Where to start, so much is happening!

Dr. Elias has been working hard to move our training program forward. As this will be a unique training program, it has undergone careful review by many Stakeholders and their input has been invaluable in improving the program design. The program is awaiting final accreditation by the national education board in Nairobi. Once obtained, we can enroll students and begin to meet the great need for Palliative Care trained health workers in Kenya. Will keep you posted!

In addition to the educational, we continue our research study evaluating an innovative use of telecommunication as a means of delivering end-of-life care in rural areas without hospice services. Our hope is to complete this pilot study by the end of 2020.

We continue to build a team of North American Physicians to assist in our tripartite mission of clinical care, education and research. I will be returning this spring as will Drs. Colleen Brown and Lindsay Dow. Dr. Clarissa Johnston will be making her first trip to Eldoret to work with the team this Spring. She is an Associate Professor at the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas in Austin. To add to the mix, Dr. Eric Shepard, a Palliative Care Fellow from Indiana University, will also join us.

Everyone in the program greatly appreciates your support and we are humbled by your generosity. Without you as part of the team, we would not have accomplished all that we have done (and will do!). As always, I must give the vast majority of the credit to the wonderful health care providers in Eldoret who are truly the agents of change. We remain inspired by their skill and dedication.

We’ll have even more to report in our Spring report, but for now I send a big Asante Sana (thank you very much) to you all!  

Ken