Transforming Childrens's Palliative Care Globally

Lots has happened since we launched our campaign to transform children’s palliative care globally. On Friday October 11^th 2024 we had a successful #HatsOn4CPC Campaign. This year we asked “What hat will you wear to close the gap?” as we reflected on the milestones achieved in the 10 years since the World Health Assembly (WHO’s Governing Body)passed a resolution on palliative care, calling for all countries to “strengthen palliative care as a component of comprehensive care throughout the life course.” We highlighted some of the gaps that still exist by sharing data from our global mapping of CPC development. We wear different hast every day as we care for children living with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions. Some of our hats are as parents, siblings, caregivers, nurses, paediatricians, oncologists, teachers, donors, advocates ….. the list is endless. Whichever hat we wear to improve the lives of seriously ill children around the world, we need to make our voices hard. You can find more information about the event on our website and see some of our resources that we used during the campaign. 

In recognition of the anniversary of the WHA resolution the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) partnered with the World Health organisation to develop a report that was launched in November entitled “Palliative Care: How can we respond to 10 years of limited progress?” the report includes case studies that highlight innovative and transformative model of palliative care and details the persisting and worsening inequities in access to and quality of palliative care services – for both adults and children globally. The report concludes that urgent, evidence-informed, co-ordinated action is needed to reduce these inequities and ensure access to palliative care, including children’s palliative care. We were delighted to having contributed to the development of the report, as members of the WISH 2024 Forum on Palliative Care Advisory Group, and were at the WISH meeting in Doha for it’s launch. We were also delighted to be able to advocate for children’s palliative care with Dr Tedros Ashanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation. 

We have also been very busy building capacity for children’s palliative care these past few months, including our ongoing project in Ghana, support the MyChildMatters grant in Kenya, leadership training in South Asia, the Association of Paediatric Palliative Medicine conference in the UK, training in Prague, building capacity in the EMRO region, teaching a ‘training of trainers’ programme in Rome for the region, amongst others. We were also able to participate in the WHO palliative care working group which was held in Memphis at the end of October. 

As we entered into the New Year we looked ahead to 2025 as ICPCN celebrates its 20^th anniversary and is planning our 4^th International conference on children’s palliative care to be held in Manila, Philippines from the 12^th-15^th November. Lots will be happening over the coming year and we would like to thank you for your ongoing support as we continue to work with colleagues from around the world to ensure that children globally have access to the care that they need. 

Thank you again for your continued support.