The International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) has announced a revised mission and vision statement for the next 5 years. The association's mission is to collaborate and work to improve the quality of life for patients with advanced life-threatening conditions and their families by advancing hospice and palliative care programs, education, research, and favorable policies around the world. The IAHPC vision is to help increase and optimize the availability of and access to hospice and palliative care for patients and their families throughout the world. This goal is to be achieved through the following actions:
* Facilitating and providing palliative care education and training opportunities for care providers
* Acting as an information resource for professionals, healthcare providers, and policy makers
* Developing collaborative strategies for hospice and palliative care providers, organizations, institutions, and individuals
The IAHPC also has announced the Joint Declaration and Statement of Commitment, a drive to collect signatures for the recognition of palliative care and pain treatment as human rights. Supportive materials are available on the Web site, and palliative and hospice care personnel are invited to join and spread the word to colleagues and friends. The following is a sample of text from an introductory letter that the IAHPC is providing for supporters to use:
Every week more than 1 million people die with chronic and progressive conditions who do not receive any palliative care and pain treatment. In spite of the advances, many doctors, insurance programs, social security systems, and national health policies do not cover or recognize palliative care as a component of care. The vast majority of people die abandoned by the system without ever receiving palliative care. Developing countries, where about 80 percent of the population lives, registers only about 6% of the total worldwide consumption of morphine, which indicates a huge disparity in access to pain treatment.
Several organizations have joined together and developed a Joint Declaration and Statement of Commitment for the recognition of palliative care and pain treatment as human rights. I invite you to sign this declaration to help us in this effort. The more signatures we are able to collect, the greater chance that we are able to bring this to the attention of the United Nations bodies and governments.
The joint declaration identifies seven action points to work on to achieve this objective. You can download the declaration from the IAHPC Web site at http://www.hospicecare.com/resources/pain_pallcare_hr/docs/jdsc.pdf.
To sign the declaration online, please click on http://www.hospicecare.com/cgi-script/csFormbuilder/forms/declaration.htm.
The IAHPC also asks that you send these links to your colleagues, friends, relatives, and all your contacts. In a separate section of this newsletter, we offer a short introductory letter that you may use or modify to announce this important joint declaration. The declaration is intended for all the citizens of the world, not just the palliative care and pain community. The IAHPC wants all individuals to know that they can demand palliative care and pain treatment as a right.