Put the essential palliative care package into every universal health coverage benefit list
The Lancet Commission defined a cheap basic package of drugs, equipment and staff for palliative care. Countries expanding health coverage should include it as a guaranteed benefit.
The Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief specified an Essential Package (a short list of medicines including oral morphine, basic equipment, and human resources) costed at a few dollars per capita in low-income countries. Countries designing universal health coverage benefit packages routinely omit palliative care. Advocacy and technical assistance to include the package as a defined entitlement would make funding and delivery accountable.
- Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most · Most people who die of cancer worldwide do so without adequate pain relief.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.
- Funding follows fashion, not burden · Money goes to the cancers and questions that are easy or popular, not the ones that kill most or where a dollar would do most.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaEarmark a fixed share of every national cancer budget for palliative care
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Funding follows fashion, not burden.
- PersonRandy Pausch
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Funding follows fashion, not burden.
- IdeaSingle-fraction radiotherapy as the default for painful bone metastases
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaTrials of low-cost opioid alternatives where morphine supply is unreliable
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaNational opioid quota reform so morphine reaches cancer patients
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaHome end-of-life care kits and trained family carers where no hospice exists
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaA paediatric palliative care team in every childhood cancer unit
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
- IdeaPalliative care from diagnosis for every advanced cancer, including opioid access, worldwide
Shares Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.