Improve Quality of Life -Palliative Care Education

The IAHPC received 26 applications for Traveling Scholarship from palliative care workers in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean to attend the 5th International African Palliative Care Conference in Kampala, Uganda.

The IAHPC was able to fund 57% of those applications.  Anita from Ghana was one of the lucky applicants to receive a Traveling Scholarship to attend the international conference.

Anita is part of a small palliative care team at her hospital so the challenges to meet the demand is challenging. But in spite of these challenges, the team has persevered and maintained its presence in the hospital.

Anita describes the important learning points she gained from the conference.

“The conference was a good experience that offered some insights into how the palliative care service in my hospital could be improved. I learned three great lessons.
• However small the team, we have a great potential to cause change…
• Advocacy is an indispensable part of any palliative care service. Concentrating on clinical care alone is not enough for team growth. Advocacy has to go beyond medical circles to include the communities our hospital serves.
• National and regional collaboration provides the avenue to share best practices and provides a stronger platform for advocacy and initiating change.”

The conference was a good opportunity to explore and initiate potential partnerships for the future... growth cannot occur in isolation.”

Eunice from Zimbabwe also received a Traveling Scholarship to attend the conference in Uganda.

Eunice stated that the “IAHPC is doing a wonderful job in supporting people to attend various activities that add value to palliative care.”

From the entire IAHPC team, thank you for your generosity.

Links:

• Global Map of IAHPC Travel Scholarship recipients since 1998

Thank you again for your generous donation through the GlobalGiving website to the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) “Traveling Scholarships for Palliative Care Workers” project. Your donation made an enormous difference.

Due to your contribution to this campaign, the IAHPC has been able to increase the 2017 Travel Scholarship Program by 16%. This is giving additional palliative care workers from low resource settings the opportunity to participate in educational activities such as Clint from Victoria Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa who is pictured here.

Clint received a Travel Scholarship to attend the 5th International African Palliative Care Conference in Kampala, Uganda in August 2016. He established the Abundant Life Palliative Care program in Cape Town, which he describes as one of the first hospital-based and integrated palliative care programs in South Africa. He identified that the most neglected group of patients for palliative care were the non-HIV and non-cancer patients and started with organ failure patients including those with heart, kidney, lung, liver and brain failure conditions.

“I attended the research workshop and this was practical and encouraging. As an advocate for palliative care in chronic disease and non-communicable disease through Abundant Life (organ failure palliative care), I was part of the team discussing heart failure. This was a fascinating process. Interacting in a team with members from different backgrounds resulted in different approaches to the same questions. Being a clinician with no interaction with researchers I realized my limitations and their [the researchers’] ability to analyze the clinical scenarios from such different perspectives. Clearly research is best done in a team approach.

Having the opportunity to network with everyone in one place was probably immeasurable.”

To view the IAHPC Travel Scholarship recipients since 1998, please visit the IAHPC Global Map.

Links:

• IAHPC Global Map of Travel Scholarship Recipients