Today sees the launch of our handbook “Inspiring Hope: Helping churches to care for the sick” at the African Palliative Care Association (APCA) conference in Johannesburg. It’s intended to inform, inspire and equip churches in Africa to play their part in caring for people with life limiting diseases within their own communities. Although written from an African perspective, much of it is relevant to churches across the world – even, dare I say it, in developed countries like the UK.
The APCA conference itself is an amazing event and is packed with opportunities to hear about the huge impact that a relatively small group of people and organisations are having on the lives of millions of people living with life limiting diseases. However, despite their Herculean efforts, the need for good palliative care is expanding massively, and only a small proportion of those that need it get it.
In Uganda, which has one of the most developed palliative care services in Africa, Hon Sarah Opendi, Minister of State for Primary Healthcare, told yesterday’s Ministers of Health meeting that only about 10% of people who need palliative care are receiving it. And her colleague from Kenya, Hon James Macharia, Cabinet Secretary for Health, touched on the challenges of governments reaching the most remote areas. (Interestingly, he pointed to the contribution of the faith based sector, and especially churches, in reaching the remotest communities).
Princess Dina of Jordan in her video address this morning, highlighted the appalling statistic that over 27 million people are dying lonely and painful deaths across the developing world. Thats 99% of all global deaths with untreated pain. Can you just imagine the misery, anguish and devastation this has, not only on the person who is dying, but on their families as well?
The need for good palliative care is being further exacerbated by increases in non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, diabetes and lung disease). These are predicted to increase significantly over the next ten years and beyond. UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon has described this as a “public health emergency in slow motion”.
Yet palliative care hardly merits a mention when people talk about health, even when discussing HIV. Perhaps this is because so many of those who are suffering are invisible to most of us. Could you imagine the global response to a natural disaster that resulted in 27 million agonising deaths?
Emotive language aside, all of this points to a global need for good care for everyone who has a life limiting disease. It’s an opportunity for us to reflect our true humanity – as Viktor Frankl put it, “saying yes to life, despite everything”. Palliative care is as much about living as it is about dying, and as with HIV, can be provided for many years.
This afternoon I’ve been taking part in a workshop on spirituality in palliative care. It really struck me that as we discussed and debated what we mean by spiritual care, essentially the secular and spiritual aspects of palliative care are quite simple. Ultimately they are about hope, meaning and peace.
Whether we like it or not, the task of addressing this greatest of challenges falls to our generation. One of the pioneers of palliative care in Africa, Prof Dr Anne Merriman sums it all up like this: “Every pain that is relieved and every symptom that is improved is a little resurrection for our patient”. We need to do this person by person, community by community, country by country. I hope that our handbook will be another small contribution to this.
I’ll leave the final word to Nelson Mandela, who I am sure is receiving excellent palliative care not too far from where I am writing this, here in Johannesburg, “It always seems impossible until it is done”.
James Wells is the Chief Executive of EMMS International, a UK based international development charity. This article first appeared on James’ blog.
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