So, another year and another trip to India. During the last three years I have travelled to various cities of India to attend the yearly conferences of the Indian Society for the Study of Pain (ISSP) and the Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC) in order to collect data for my social science doctorate, looking… Continue reading
Just before Easter 1961, Cicely Saunders sat down to send greetings to a colleague. It was someone who shared her interests in developing special facilities and approaches for the care of the dying – especially those with advanced cancer. Nothing unusual in that. She was now getting into her stride with a growing ambition… Continue reading
How could we not believe miracles don’t happen when we actually witnessed one! That miracle to us was the successful accomplishment of the STUDENTSPALCON2015 international conference on the topic “youth in palliative care” organized mutually by the Institute of Palliative Medicine, Calicut and the Students in Palliative Care. To organize a conference was initially… Continue reading
This week in Kerala, southern India, the first ever student and young people’s palliative care conference is taking place. It is called STUDENTSPALCON 2015. The impetus has come from the ever-resourceful Institute of Palliative Medicine in Kozhikode, and the associated Neighbourhood Networks in Palliative Care. The conference website states: “Critical engagement with the idea of… Continue reading
In a briefing note published in 2009, the World Health Organization estimated ‘that 5 billion people… have no or insufficient access to treatment for moderate to severe pain’ . Much of the dialogue related to this lack of access has focused on the availability of the opioid drug morphine, but despite several high profile… Continue reading
