World Hospice and Palliative Care Day 2009

World Hospice and Palliative Care Day with Voices for Hospices took place on October 10 2009. The theme was "Discovering your voice" highlighting the need to find the voices of patients, carers and family members as well as policy makers to improve care.

The most countries involved ever

395 events registered in 74 countries around the world and more are still being completed. You can view the events that were registered here.

Discovering the voices of people living with life-limiting illness and carers

The theme for 2009 "Discovering your voice" highlighted the voices of patients, carers and family members. Individuals from around the world shared their stories of what hospice and palliative care meant to them. You can read these stories here. Many organisations and individuals around the world used the Day to focus on the voices of the people living with life-limiting illness.

The following story which was submitted from Malaysia was chosen as the unifying factor that was read out at all World Hospice and Palliative Care Day and Voices for Hospices events around the world.

"Despite all the advances in medicine and healthcare, many are still robbed of their independence and sometimes their dignity by terminal illness. Their loved ones can experience complete loss when they have exhausted all avenues and resources. My dad is one of these people. We fought a good fight together with him till the end. Despite his strong fighting spirit, family support and the best available medical treatment, he succumbed to the big "C" on the 1st day of Feb 2007. The 'journey' towards this end was a physical and mental battle but thank goodness there was hospice! They were like a speck of light in a complete darkness when you start to feel that you are losing the battle! Their touch is a little miracle that deserves commendation! It is not just the medicine that they use but the words that they choose and sometimes the silence that they opted for, were all so comforting, so right! They were truly the "angels" at work.

I salute them and have every reason to support hospice care! They championed humanity and human dignity!"

Voices for Hospices

We were pleased that Voices for Hospices was the official fundraising activity for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day in 2009. People around the world sang to celebrate and raise funds and awareness for their local hospice and palliative care service. Concerts took place around the world - including nationwide across Poland, Croatia, Uganda and Singapore. This was a truly inspiring global event.

Message of support from Mary Robinson

We were delighted that Mary Robinson, former High Commissioner on Human Rights and Former President of Ireland expressed her support for hospice and palliative care. She stated:

"We must intensify our efforts to listen to the needs of the dying and to put in place hospice care services that respond sensitively and appropriately to their needs."

Read her full message of support here.  

Advocating for hospice and palliative care

With the generous support of the Open Society Institute, grants were awarded to 14 organisations in 14 countries to undertake advocacy activities in connection with World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. These included:

• A media training workshop for hospice and palliative care providers in India

• A project to increase public awareness on the concept of palliative care and advocate for increased skills training and development among care providers across all health care providers in Zimbabwe

• Building awareness on palliative care amongst the professionals, policy makers and the community in Bangladesh

For more information about these project, please contact Claire Morris.

Reaching out to new audiences

This year World Hospice and Palliative Care Day joined twitter to inform a new audience about hospice and palliative care and what was happening.

We were delighted that Global Voices, the online blogging site, did a special article for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. This article brought together how people across the world were talking about hospice and palliative care on the internet to raise awareness and highlight the benefits of hospice and palliative care.

We also joined Twitter in 2009, providing regular updates on the events and activities for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. The site enables people and organisations to give immediiate updates on what is happening. You can join Twitter here to follow our posts and inform others interested in hospice and palliative care findwhat you are doing.

In addition, we launched a You Tube channel to highlight videos of hospice and palliative care around the world. The first clip to be uploaded was the story of Zodwa Sithole in South Africa. You can view the video on the You Tube website. If you would like to add videos to the site, please contact the World Day organisers.

How does World Hospice and Palliative Care Day help people living with life-limiting illness?

We are currently undertaking an evaluation to find out how events and activities in 2009 have improved access to and awareness about hospice and palliative care internationally.

However, here are some preliminary comments from hospice and palliative care services around the world to show the impact of their activities.

Sierra Leone

Hospitals in Freetown and communities are now  referring patients with severe pain to the shepherd's Hospice (The Shepherd's Hospice, Sierra Leone)

Cameroon

Many people came to the team with questions about palliative care and many families brought their patients to the teams’ attention. (Banso Baptist Hospital, Cameroon)

South Africa

The coach and a player from the Moroko Swallows Soccer Team had an outreach to a cancer patient of Ladybrand Hospice who absolutely loves Soccer.  (Ladybrand Hospice, South Africa)

Please complete the evaluation now to help us measure the impact of the Day and improve the Day for 2010 and beyond.

The result of this evaluation will be available in March 2010.

 Events 2009