|
Message from the Chair
and Executive Director
Roberto Wenk, MD (Argentina)
Liliana De Lima, MHA (USA)
Dear readers:
Welcome back to this edition of the IAHPC Newsletter.
Many of our readers may already know the sad news about the death of Professor Vittorio Ventafridda, one of the founders of palliative care. The Board of Directors of IAHPC sends its condolences to his wife and colleagues at the Istituto dei Tumori in Milan, Italy for this great loss. The palliative care community has lost a great leader and founder. Professor Ventafridda was the founder of the European Association of Palliative Care (EAPC), one of the founders of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and one of the authors of the WHO Analgesic Ladder.
Several years ago, and as a tribute to Professor Ventafridda, the IAHPC named our Individual Recognition Award after him in recognition of his leadership, vision and commitment to palliative care. This edition of the NL includes a brief biography of Professor Ventafridda and a link to the EAPC website where messages can be read and posted.
A few days ago we sent our members a call for nominations for six seats in our Board of Directors. In a separate section of the Newsletter, you will find the call for nominations, and the criteria to nominate candidates. Deadline for nominating candidates is November 15th. We invite you to nominate candidates who wish to join IAHPC in its effort to promote and further develop palliative care around the globe.
As you know on October 11th the 3rd World Hospice and Palliative Care Day was celebrated. This effort was coordinated by the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance (WPCA) and has proven to be a great way to celebrate Hospice and Palliative Care around the world. Because of the World Day, the level of advocacy and dissemination of the principles of palliative care have reached critical masses of people, policy makers and health care providers. Congratulations to the WPCA for their success. If you wish to learn more about the World Day, read reports on how many participants celebrated, or submit a report, please visit the World Day website at http://www.worldday.org/
The key message of this recent World Day was that Palliative Care and Pain Treatment are Human Rights. To support this initiative, the IAHPC, in alliance with the WPCA and several organizations joined together and developed a Joint Declaration and Statement of Commitment for the recognition of palliative care and pain treatment as Human Rights. We have collected almost 4,000 signatures supporting this Declaration. If you haven’t signed yet, we invite you to do so inorder to help us in this effort. We would also appreciate it if you could forward this to your contacts, friends and family to invite them to sign.
The Declaration is available in:
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
As part of the effort to promote pain treatment as a human right, we thank Ms. Adri Nieuwhof for a graffiti written on the Israeli wall in Ramallah, West Bank, stating "Pain treatment is a universal human right" (see picture below).
We are very grateful with Ms. Nieuwhof for her interest in supporting access to pain treatment and for her help in getting this sign on the wall.
Our NL has now over 9,000 subscribers and has become a great source for information dissemination around the world. We invite you to contribute articles and news about events, recent developments or other important issues in your countries so that others may learn about the progress being made in palliative and hospice care.
Regards,
Roberto Wenk, MD
Chair, Board of Directors
Liliana De Lima, MHA
Executive Director
Email this page to a friend!
Top of Page |
