Amongst the hundreds of delegates attending the 5th APCA Conference in collaboration with the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance, presently taking place at the beautiful Speke Resort outside Kampala in Uganda you will bump into numerous well known luminaries from the world of palliative care. One of these being ICPCN Chief Executive, Joan Marston, who is renowned for her mantra ‘Don’t forget the children.’!
At the plenary session held yesterday morning, Thursday 18 August, three of these leaders in the field were presented with a Global Palliative Care Achievement Award. The three recipients were Dr Scott Murray, Dr Jacinto Amandua, Commissioner for Clinical Services in the Ugandan Ministry of Health and ICPCN’s Joan Marston.
Surprised and delighted
Joan was surprised and delighted to be singled out for this award, which recognised the impressive body of work that has defined her career in children’s palliative care. A career that began in the 1990’s when she became a hospice nurse and then went on to found one of South Africa’s first children’s hospices in Bloemfontein, in the Free State. This in turn led to her appointment as Advocacy Officer for the Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa, later as the Paediatric Palliative Care Lead for the same organisation and then in 2010 to her appointment as the first Chief Executive of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network, an organisation she helped found in 2005.
The Global Palliative Care Achievement Award award was presented to Joan by Lucy Sainsbury, Chair of The True Colours Trust, the foundation that has supported the work of the ICPCN since 2007. In an emotional tribute, Lucy spoke of the passion that Joan has always shown for the development of palliative care services for vulnerable children and praised her dedication and commitment to what has been her life’s work.
In her short acceptance speech, Joan gratefully received the award on behalf of all of those who champion the rights of children to receive palliative care as well as those who work daily with these children and their families. She thanked the organisers for this wonderful recognition.
As could be expected, she ended with the words, ‘Never, never forget the children.’
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