Providing Palliative Care in Kenya

Jambo Palliative Care Supporters,

Hope this note finds you well! I am in Kenya this month and am enjoying the wonderful people and beautiful weather here in Eldoret.

For this report, Dr. Hussein Elias and I have some exciting news.  

Our third class of Clinical Officers have just begun their training to be certified as specialist in Palliative Care. For those not familiar with our prior efforts, Clinical Officers are similar in training to Physician Assistants in the US and they provide most of the healthcare in rural Kenya. We are the first in East Africa to offer a board certification course, which requires participants to spend at least 18 months in clinical care, lecture and directed learning. We anticipate up to 15 students this year!

Dr. Elias and I are finalizing plans to provide TeleHospice as a part of the palliative care clinic. The goal is to support individuals living in areas where there are no home hospice services, which is the reality for most living in Western Kenya. We previously published a pilot Telehospice study to support patients with severe cancer pain. The lessons learned will be used to support patients and their family with weekly calls, access to a 24-hour hotline, and medication support for pain and other symptoms. To learn a bit more of what we learned in our pilot study, here is a link to our original paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2023.01.027

For visitors new to our site, any support you can provide will be greatly appreciated. The number of clinical officers enrolled for specialty training is double what we anticipated. We will also be hiring a Clinical Officer to assist with the trainees and to be the individual managing the Telehospice service.

As always, THANKS to those who have been supporting our efforts!! You are a key part of our team and the progress made would not have been possible without YOU!

Asante sana (Thanks so much!),

Ken