The charity has further strengthened its links with Lithuania to help the country improve the standard of its palliative care.
Doctor Tatjana Zobnina and Nurse Karolina Sedyte have spent a week on a fact-finding visit from the Baltic State to the hospice in Greater Manchester.
The pair learned more about St Ann’s role within the health care sector and joined Medical Director/Consultant in Palliative Medicine Dr Phillip Lomax on a visit to Salford Royal Hospital.
Dr Zobnina, who is Russian and works at a hospital in Vilnius, said: “Palliative care in England is far more advanced than in Lithuania and we’ll take home a lot of important information to help us further develop and improve health care back home.
“St Ann’s has a great reputation and hopefully our hospice care can catch up quickly and our patients can eventually receive the same high quality of end of life care.”
Karolina, a nurse at a clinic in Klaipeda, said: “There are only a few hospices in Lithuania but we follow the same medical guidelines as the UK so what we learn here is of huge benefit.”
Siân Burgess, Clinical Services Manager at St Ann’s, has previously visited Lithuania under a partnership between the hospice and the Tiltas Trust, a UK charity which shares experience and best practice between the countries.
Siân said: “We’re delighted our expertise can benefit patients in Lithuania both now and in the longer term and are happy to share our knowledge of long-established palliative care services with fellow medical professionals in other parts of Europe.
“Lithuania has a long way to go in terms of hospice care but is continuing to develop its services and has already come a long way in a short space of time.”
Read more about St Ann’s Hospice on their website.
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