Palais des Nations, Geneva – Monday 25 May, marked an historic leap forward in global advocacy for children’s palliative care when the very first side event on the topic was held at the 68th World Health Assembly ending today. The side event was organised by the Permanent Missions of Panama, Chile, Italy and Spain at the motivation of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN).
Not only was there a full house at the event, with over 90 people attending, those present received an unexpected but most welcome visit and short speech from Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization. In her impromptu speech, Dr Chan praised the civil society involvement of all the supporting organisations listed on the programme and said that the World Health Organization was pleased to work with these organisations to get the WHO resolution on palliative care going and to assist countries to do their best to help children with special needs.
She said that listening to a presentation had reminded of her ‘past life’ when she too had been involved in hospice care with different age groups and stated how pleased she was to know that children’s needs were being recognised. Her parting comments before leaving to attend another event, was “Keep up the good work. Don’t give up!”
Presentations and videos will be uploaded to the ICPCN website within the next week.
Read the full article on the International Children’s edition of ehospice.
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