Here is some news from the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) on the 7th World Research Congress, 7-9 June 2012.

Applications are now open for travel grants to the upcoming 7th World Research Congressof the EAPC in Trondheim, Norway. According to the site, the Foundation Open Society Institute has put up the funds for these travel grants.

Application deadline: 25 April, 2012

Travel grants will only be offered to applicants who:

• have an abstract accepted for oral or poster presentation
• represent the priority countries of the International Palliative Care Initiative of the Open Society Foundation: Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, South Africa, Tajikistan, Uganda, and Ukraine.
• More information here…

Pre-Congress Seminar (4 & 5 June)

Only 18 seats remain available for participation in the pre-congress seminar (4 & 5 June), which will focus on the subject of cancer-related pain, cachexia, and dyspnea. The pre-congress seminar is being held in the beautiful countryside of Jægtvolden with organised transport to and from the main congress venue in Trondheim.

• Application information here…
• Deadline for pre-congress seminar presentations: April 20, 2012

Dr Twycross taking time to speak with delegates at the conference

Anger in Compassion: Dr Robert Twycross addresses IAPCON 2012

Many of us have come to see anger as a negative emotion. But, can it have any positive effect? Let us tell you how the question came up.

Dr Robert Twycross is the palliative care guru of India. He taught almost all the first generation palliative care physicians in India and through them, the subsequent generation. (See the writeup about our Bruce Davis Training Centre to see how his pioneering work continues to inspire.)

He has retired now, but came back to India and took part in the annual conference of the Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPCON 2012) organized by Dr Arundhati Chakraborty, held in Kolkata last month. In a moving event, his students gave him a plaque of honor. We strongly recommend that you take half an hour to see and to listen to his entire lecture.

If you can’t spare half an hour (we pity you!) here are some gems from his talk:

1. You need to be angry. Do you not have enough to be angry about?  

• 99% of the needy in India do not have access to pain relief;
• Most of some 300 odd medical colleges in the country (except for some five or six) fail to teach pain management and palliative care.

These facts alone may make “anger in compassion” well up in you, forcing you in to action. If so, let that anger be a catalyst for change!

2. It’s time to redefine what constitutes a medical emergency.
It should include, for example, someone with a limited life span who has not had a good night’s sleep in three months.

3. Miminise formality, maximise humanity.
The bigger your organization becomes, the more formal it becomes. It takes effort to retain humanity.

Dr Twycross ended his lecture by quoting Pallium India newsletter of March 2009. He asked all the young people in the audience to take down the quote, put it on a plaque and to keep it on their wall:

“We should not permit the growth and routinization of palliative care to take away its soul. It will be a happy day when palliative care reaches most of the needy in the country; but it will be a sad, sad day, if in the process palliative care comes to be delivered just with the brain, and the ‘eyes of the heart’ do not open any more!”

We were very pleased to hear last week from Meg O’Brien, Ph.D., director of the Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative (GAPRI) of its collaboration with the Nigerian Ministry of Health.

We were even more heartened to see that the story has now been picked up by the New York Times, in an article headlined “Nigeria to Import Morphine in Pain Relief Initiative”by health reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. Meg sent us this information:

… the Honourable Minister of Health of Nigeria, Prof. C.O. Onyebuchi Chukwu, held a press conference at the Abuja Sheraton hotel to announce a new collaboration with the Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative (GAPRI) to make essential pain relief available for Nigerians who need it.

The first step in the effort was the initiation of an emergency procurement of 26 kg of morphine by the government. Since only 1 kg has been procured since 2007 and Nigeria has the largest unmet need for pain relief in Sub-Saharan Africa, this represents an important first step to changing the landscape of access to pain relief both in Nigeria and in the region.

The Minister of Health earlier this month signed an agreement with GAPRI to provide technical assistance to the government as well as provide a full-time staff member who will serve as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Food and Drug Services Department on Access to Pain Relief.

This progress is a direct result of lobbying by the national Cancer Control Programme and support from the Center for Palliative Care, Nigeria, the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of Nigeria, the African Palliative Care Association, and Hospice Africa Uganda.

GAPRI’s involvement would not have been possible without the support of these organizations, and particularly, Prof. Isaac Adewole and Prof. Olaitan Soyannwo, who invited us in and helped us to plan the technical proposal.

The press release from the Hon. Minister is available here: http://www.uicc.org/programmes/nigeria-announces-collaboration-gapri-improve-access-essential-pain-medicines

Congratulations to all who were involved in this major achievement.

The Nottingham Life Cycle PhD Studentships in Palliative and End of Life Care

We are interested in applicants who can contribute to the development of an exciting and innovative portfolio of research and scholarly activity, with a particular focus on improving palliative and end of life care (including education) in ‘resource poor contexts’ in UK or non-UK contexts.

• Full details and application information here…

Application Deadline: 28 February 2012

On Saturday, January 28, Pallium India-USA and the community of Silicon Valley, California were honored with a special guest.

Pallium India chairman Dr. M.R. Rajagopal gave a talk to a full house at the private home of Dr. Jyoti Lulla, a well known and respected Saratoga physician and community member.

The event, organized by Pallium India-USA, was well attended by many physicians, healthcare workers, Silicon Valley executives and engineers, and others who wished to learn more about the work Pallium is doing in India.

Pallium India-USA Volunteers

Dr. Jerina Kapoor, chair of Pallium India-USA introduced Dr. Rajagopal.

Dr. Rajagopal’s hard hitting and at times emotionally intense talk took on the serious problem of suffering and pain relief in India.

He told two stories: one of a poor woman, Sangeeta, whose mother was dying of cancer. Her own future was foreclosed on as a result of the impoverishment created by the absence of an adequate medical and social system. The second story was of a wealthy man, Mr. Das, who nonetheless was traumatized by his doctors’ insistence he undergo needless life-extending treatments.

Dr. Rajagopal challenged the audience to think about and plan for their own future.

“Most of us won’t have the good fortune of an instant death,” he said. “The majority will have a prolonged decline.”

A lively and passionate discussion followed his presentation. The quality of the talk was a sure sign that positive change is possible when it comes to caring for the seriously ill and dying around the globe.

In all a very successful event.

Dr E Divakaran, Director, Institute of Palliative Care, Thrissur proposes to present various palliative care training programs in the country at the forthcoming annual conference of Indian Association of Palliative Care at Kolkata on 10-12 February, 2012.

He requests information on all training programs in India.

Please oblige by submitting details using the online form – Deadline: 31 December 2011

SUBMIT NOW »

It will help your institution by attracting candidates and more importantly, it will help candidates seeking training.

The next six weeks’ certificate courses in palliative medicine, palliative nursing and palliative care instead of starting as usual on the first Monday of the month, will start on 16 May 2011 and will end on 25 June 2011.

The subsequent course, as scheduled, will start on Monday, the 4th of July.

Those who wish to apply for the courses, please apply using the application forms here:

palliumindia.org/courses/

Palliative Care Toolkit Training Programme, SGPGI, Lucknow

It was led by Dr Mhoira Leng, the director of the international organisation Cairdeas International and the palliative care team at SGPGI consisting of Dr Shakeel Ahmad, Dr Sanjay Dhiraaj and palliative care nurse Alice among others. The group also had interactive sessions with medical personnel from nearby medical colleges.

Around 20 people were trained in 5 days and more than 40 were sensitised to the compelling need for palliative care services in the region. Significant coverage in the media ensured that more and more people who need such services but had no prior knowledge of this form of treatment will now be able to access it.

We are also happy that the team has been able to increase their home care services in the last few months.

Download a PDF of press clippings about the training programme - articles printed in English and Hindi.

Komandy, Kyrgyz Republic

It was deeply satisfying to come across Dr Nargiza Dadahanova‘s kind words of appreciation in our blog, about the work we are doing.

She has shared with us her experiences in the area of cancer treatment in her country. We would like our readers to have an inside view of the state of affairs in palliative care and treatment in a resource poor country like hers, the Kyrgyz Republic:

Dr Nargiza Dadahanova

I am the founder of the Sante Foundation in Kyrgyz Republic. I am an oncologist and working in the National Oncology Center.

Due to the lack of financial resources and means to provide for a psychiatrist position in the center, the work load of the oncologists is increasing. Therefore, the idea of establishing a foundation for providing cancer patients with oncological and psychiatric help was initiated.

During the last year, psychiatrists of our foundation provided psychological help to cancer patients who were treated in the Mammology Center and in the Palliative Care ward in the National Oncology Center.

In the course of our work, we face a number of problems:

• Total lack of the specialists in the area of palliative care and also lack of an informational resource center where we can find information about palliative care in Russian or in Kyrgyz languages.
• On the legislation level, there is no article about palliative care in the law on cancer care.
• Because of lack of awareness among people about symptoms of oncological diseases and their detection and also because of low living standards in the country, in 47% of cases patients apply to the oncology center at the III – IV stage of disease.
• Lack of updated, reliable statistical data about cancer cases.
• The problem of providing complex, valuable help to such category of patients is not raised and discussed among population and on the governmental level and patients and their relatives stay isolated in this problem.

As of now, we have undertaken the following steps:

• We have visited the Public Fund Revival, met with their representatives and attended several seminars that were conducted by representatives of the Cestadomu organization Jona Valjentova and Jindriska Prokopova.
• After these seminars, we have started to work on a strategy of development of palliative care in Kyrgyzstan and the creation of a multi-disciplinary team.
• Psychiatrists of our fund have begun to provide psychological help to patients in the palliative care ward of the National Oncology center.
• We are working towards opening a unit for treatment of chronic pain for cancer patients.
• We have also started working with the local Ministry of Health on including an additional article about palliative care into the law on cancer care.

Nargiza: we are glad that our blog reached you and inspired you to share your experience with us. Thank you!

We invite our readers in similar circumstances to use this as a platform for showcasing their problems and solutions so that every one can benefit from the fount of collective experience. Contact us via the website or leave comments below…

Admission is now open for the following six weeks certificate courses at Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences.

• CCPPM for doctors
• CCPN for nurses
• CCPC for those who are not doctors or nurses, but with an interest in palliative care and those have passed 12th standard and acquired any degree,diploma or fellowship in any subject.

Those who wish to apply for the course starting on the first Monday of July (5 July) or subsequent alternate months, please apply using the application forms here:

http://palliumindia.org/courses/