Project Description
PALLIATIVE CARE
Advocating for quality end of life care
- Develop expert-led multidisciplinary short training courses for health professionals and community care givers in several venues, rural and urban, in Zambia.
- Develop institutional and human resource capacity at Palliative Care Association of Zambia (PCAZ).
- Position PCAZ as Zambia’s leading advocate for national palliative care policies and standards.
- Advocate to the Government of Zambia for affordable and appropriate palliative care to be incorporated into the whole spectrum of health care services.
- Encourage the establishment of hospices and other palliative care providing community based organizations.
- Enforce standards of providing palliative care at all levels of the health care system.
In many parts of the world, including Zambia, hospice and palliative care is either non-existent or in its infancy, with about 5 billion people living in countries with insufficient or no access to medications to control severe or moderate pain. Too often such care is simply not available: according to the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance, while more than 100m people would benefit from hospice and palliative care annually (including family and carers who need help and assistance in caring), less than 8% of those in need access it.
Palliative care is urgently needed in Zambia, as cases of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiac diseases, and diabetes, continue to rise and HIV prevalence stands at 13%. Palliative care programmes in the country remain hugely under-funded.
The OkaZHI Palliative Care Program aims to effectively promote the development and delivery of quality palliative care by health providers and institutions in order to improve quality of life for people living with life-limiting illnesses in Zambia.
For more information on our palliative care programs please email [email protected]