We need your help. We are writing to you because the Executive Board of the World Health Organization will be meeting from 22 - 27 January 2018 in Geneva and we need to keep palliative care on the WHO’s agenda.
There are a number of items relevant to palliative care on the agenda but most importantly the WHO Executive Board will be discussing the latest draft of the Global Programme of Work (GPW) which outlines what they will do from 2019 - 2023. The first draft had no mention of palliative care and after advocacy by all of you, we now have good inclusion of palliative care in the document. In addition we believe that a palliative care target and indicator has been added to the impact framework which will measure progress of the GPW but we need to make sure that a palliative care target remains in the document.
A number of attendees will be going to the EB to support palliative care including Stephen Connor and Jim Cleary (WHPCA), Katherine Pettus (IAHPC), Ioseb Abesadz (Georgia) and Tania Pastrana (ALCP). If others are interested in attending this or the World Health Assembly in May please let us know. You can find the WHO agenda and documents for the Executive Board here.
Please note that this email will go to all contacts of the IAHPC, WHPCA and ICPCN so apologies for the cross-posting. Every country is different but you may want to call the national association or lead agency (or individuals) working on palliative care advocacy in your country to reduce duplication in approaches to government. However, please note the time challenges as your governments will be preparing their responses now. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact kpettus@iahpc.com or cmorris@thewhpca.org.
Kinds regards
Katherine Pettus International Association for Hospice Palliative Care Stephen Connor Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance Julia Downing International Children’s Palliative Care Network
