First palliative care workshop held in Burundi

Categories: Education.

The first one day palliative care sensitization and awareness workshop in was recently held in Burundi. The meeting was held at the Tulipe Hotel in Bujumbura in March this year.

The workshop was held in conjunction with the partner organisations: Young Women’s Knowledge and Leadership Institute Burundi (YOWLI Burundi), People’s Health Movement Burundi (PHM) and Burundi Health Healing Network with support from from the African Palliative Care Association  and the Open Society Insititute for East Africa.

The workshop was important because palliative care is not yet a mode of care in Burundi, palliative care is still in its infancy and Ministry of Health has no clear policy on the ground. The workshop aimed to mobilise local support towards the development of palliative care in Burundi through a one day advocacy workshop for 25 local stakeholders.

Participants gave very positive feedback from the workshop. One commented that, “I was so deeply thrilled to hear about Palliative care in Burundi for first time , I thank the YOWLI Association for having thought about organizing this workshop.”

Indeed, many participants commented that they would take what they had learnt and put it into practice. One participant commented, “My organization will help in the awareness and sensitization of patients and other persons to claim for Palliative care as one of their right”.

This one day and first palliative care workshop held in Burundi under patronage and with close collaboration with the MoH is just the first building block to develop palliative care. Hopefully though this will lay the foundations on which to build.

If we needed reminding why the workshop was important we just need to remember the words of one participant who said:

“Palliative care responds to human rights and dignity and it enables comfort amongst patients and their families thus no body in need shouldn’t lack it”.

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