He mentioned that by 2012, 100 district hospitals in the country would have palliative care facilities.

Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad informed that alarmed by the rising incidence of the non-communicable diseases and its impact on the health care delivery, a national summit was held in India subsequent to the Global Health Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Non-communicable Disease Control in Moscow in April 2011.

“Besides the Delhi Call for Action from the national meet, we now also have 10 key messages from the recently held WHO South-East Asia Regional meeting at Jaipur in India”, he added.

The Union Health Minister emphasized that Non Communicable Diseases are not only a health issue but also a development issue as they impact productivity and also impoverish the society due to high health expenditures. Therefore, the Government of India has launched a “National Programme for Prevention & Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardio Vascular Diseases (CVDs) and Stroke (NPCDCS)” and the “National Programme for Health Care of Elderly (NPHCE)”. This has been taken up for implementation as a pilot project covering 150 million population in 100 inaccessible and most backward districts during the current financial year (2011-2012) at a cost of 275 million USD.

The program includes several components such as: Establishment of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) clinics at 100 district hospitals and 700 Community Health Centers (CHCs) for diagnosis and management of Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD), Diabetes & Stroke and Cardiac Care Unit in district hospitals; ensuring availability of life saving drugs – wherein an additional 1,250 USD will be provided to each district hospital in 100 districts; For early detection of cancer common diagnostic services are being provided at these 100 district hospitals. Provision is also being made for basic surgery, chemotherapy and palliative care at these hospitals; For supporting Chemotherapy, drugs will be provided in these 100 district hospitals for 10,000 patients at the cost of 25 million USD; In addition, 65 centres are being strengthened as Tertiary Cancer Centres (TCCs) to provide comprehensive cancer care services at a cost of 1.5 million USD each.

• Read the full press release here: Shri Azad Leads High Level Delegation to United Nations Assembly on Prevention And Control of Non-Communicable Diseases 

In preparation for next month’s UN Summit on NCDs, the Indian Government’s Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and WHO India organized a 2-day National Summit on Noncommunicable Diseases, August 23-24, in New Delhi (press release). More than 200 delegates from various fields related to NCDs attended the meeting (programme).

During the inaugural function Mr RK Srivastava, Director General of Health Services, mentioned palliative care as one of the target areas of his department.

Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, announced his ministry’s plans to launch home visit program for bed-bound patients in 100 districts in the country.

Our collective action is bearing fruit!

Thank you for the support!

We blogged on 27 July seeking support for Pallium India’s efforts to boost Palliative Care Advocacy at the United Nations High-level Meeting on noncommunicable disease prevention and control in September.

Mr. Acquino Vimal, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India to the UN emails us to reassure us that they:

… were able to put 7 references to palliative care in the document. Now let us see how the EU and other developed countries view our position and what actually gets into the final document.

Those who have not written about it yet, please do it now!

Attached please find the letters – please feel free to download and use the attachments.

• Letter to Ambassdor HS Puri (.pdf)
• Final letter for PC Colleagues (.docx)

This week, countries’ Permanent UN Mission Offices, working alongside Ministries of Health and External Affairs, are in the final stage of negotiation for the UN NCD Summit Outcomes Document.

The summit outcomes document will provide a strategic framework for countries and global donors to follow when allocating resources to address NCDs.

Pallium India supports the overall NCD Alliance efforts and we are working with the Indian UN Permanent Mission office to ensure that the palliative care message is made strongly and clearly.

We simply can’t afford for palliative care to be watered-down or worse, not mentioned specifically in the final document.

Last week, Pallium sent the attached letter with detailed palliative care language for the UN NCD Summit document.

We urge friends in India and around the world to download the letter we sent, freely use the text from the letter, personalize it, and then email and fax the letter to:

1. Your country’s Permanent UN Mission Office
2. Your country’s ministry of health.

Please keep the 4 “asks” intact (from the letter) so that we’re all asking for the same thing. If possible, also email/fax the attached pdf that provides our Priority Palliative Care Language for the UN Summit.

Indian Contact information:

India’s Minister of Health
Email: azadgulamnabi@yahoo.in / hfm@alpha.nic.in
Fax: +91 11 2306 2358

India’s Permanent UN Mission Office:

H.E. Manjeev Singh Puri
Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Attn: Vimal Acquino, First Secretary
Permanent Mission of India
235 East 43rd St.
New York NY 10017
Email: dprpminy@gmail.com
Fax: +1 212 490 9656

• Lettter to Health Minister Azad for PC partners (.doc)
• Priority Palliative Care Language for UN NCD Summit (.pdf)

17th Session of UN HRC

Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Foundations came together with six other international organizations, including Pallium India, to host a side-event during the recent 17th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The Objective? A Human Rights Council resolution declaring: “Access to pain relief as a human right.”

Dr Tabaré Vázquez & HRW's Diederik Lohman

Dr Tabaré Vázquez, an oncologist and the former President of Uruguay, was the star of the show.

He is a champion who, while President, took such stern anti–tobacco measures that the cigarette company Philip Morris sued the Uruguayan Government in the name of an International Free Trade Agreement.

Indeed, the President was interfering with the tobacco company’s fundamental right to kill more people!

During his opening address, Dr Vázquez said,

Just as access to Health care should be a basic human right, so should access to Palliative Care be, as an integral part of it.

Drugs in Africa: A lot of pain
Africans need more morphine

GERARD was five years old when he died this year of AIDS. He lived in a slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and was nursed by his mother. “I could tell he was in a lot of pain,” she says. Yet Gerard received no relief except for ibuprofen, a mild painkiller.

…

The International Narcotics Control Board, a UN body that oversees controlled drugs, says 90% of the world’s morphine is administered in rich countries. By contrast, morphine and other painkillers such as pethidine and dihydrocodeine are hard to find in state systems in poor countries. So Africans with AIDS, cancer, sickle-cell disease, victims of car crashes, gunshot and machete wounds, and women in labour, suffer severe pain without relief.

Kenya is ahead of many African countries in palliative care, with its own hospice movement, but only seven of its 250 hospitals have ready access to morphine. Even when it is in stock, the annual supply is limited to some 1,500 patients. Yet 180,000 Kenyans die each year of AIDS and cancer alone. A 75mg daily dose of morphine would make all the difference.

Read the full article on The Economist website…

Not that there is any new information there; but every little bit of attention to the pain problem in the media helps the cause.

photo credit: Juan Rubiano

Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, presented a speech at the UN Human Rights Council.

He focused largely on the need to ensure universal access to medicines.  He highlighted the role of poverty in developing countries, and noted that children are particularly deprived of access to medicines.

The Catholic Church provides a major contribution to health care in all parts of the world – through local churches, religious institutions and private initiatives, which act on their own responsibility and in the respect of the law of each country – including the promotion of 5,378 hospitals, 18,088 dispensaries and clinics, 521 leprosaria, and 15,448 homes for the aged, the chronically ill, or disabled people.

Read more at Fides.org…

Shashi Tharoor

Former Under-Secretary General of United Nations, author and Member of Indian Parliament Mr Shashi Tharoor visited TIPS on the 24th of May 2010.

He took keen interest in the activities of Pallium India and visited patients under treatment and families. He has promised his support to the Palliative Care movement in India.

From his blog, ‘After the Storm’:

Earlier, it was a visit to a palliative care centre for Tharoor. In this place of pain and sadness, Shashi of the Sorrows seems to come into his own. He is genuinely at ease among the patients, mostly suffering from terminal cancers, reassuring them and chatting with their families. They ask for nothing, but he offers help, his cousin Sharad who runs his office taking down details.

The nurses look at him with covetous eyes as he swishes past in starched splendour. In between, he stops to chatter in Bengali to a doctor from Kolkata. “I grew up in Kolkata,” he says almost apologetically while the doctor looks dazed with happiness.

Thank you very much for the visit, Mr Tharoor!

The United Nations’ Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) met last week in Vienna.

CND Delegates

Thanks to advocacy by several agencies, most noticeably Human Rights Watch, the commission has recognised that its role is not only to control narcotic drugs but also to ensure its availability for medical purposes.

Human Rights Watch conducted a side-event promoting the global need for opioids for pain relief which was attended by several organizations including PPSG and the Access to Control program of WHO and about 70 CND delegates from all over the world. HRW statements: Day 3: statement to the plenary & Day 4: supply reduction plenary

Antonio Maria Costa

At the CND meeting, Mr Costa from UNODC highlighted [PDF] the need for improvement in opioid availability for pain relief.

The week long meeting passed a resolution “Promoting adequate availability of internationally controlled licit drugs for medical and scientific purposes while preventing their diversion and abuse.” [PDF]

We are sure it will be a powerful tool in our advocacy for pain relief.