With the theme of the World Health Day focused on Universal Health Coverage – this year UK Aid Direct has highlighted the WHPCA’s palliative care project in Narayanganj, a city in central Bangladesh.
Read the article here: How the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance is improving palliative care in Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh, people are living and dying with serious pain and suffering because there are so few hospice and palliative care services and essential palliative care is not included as part of Universal Health Coverage.
The lack of palliative care service in the region has meant that those with serious and life-limiting conditions had high levels of physical pain as well as psychological distress and mounting health costs.
This project aims to address this by providing a model of care through Palliative Care Assistants (PCAs) who positively impact the quality of life of members in their community in a way that is a cost effective and ethical imperative of health systems.
“With my work, I can contribute to human life, provide food and nutrition-related advice to the patients and serve the patient’s suffering from life-limiting illness,” says Nadia Sultana Nupur, one of the project’s PCAs who is quoted in the article.
The project serves as a partnership between the WHPCA, the Department of Palliative Medicine at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), and UK Aid Direct.
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