Only one in 12 Moldovans with incurable diseases enjoy palliative care

11.10.2014 10:19
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2 minute(s)

In Moldova, only one in 12 persons suffering from incurable diseases are given palliative care. About 25,000 people, including over 1,500 children, need such care annually. The information was provided by the National Association of Palliative Care that is staging a number of events on the occasion of the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day marked on October 11, IPN reports.

The theme for this year's event is ‘Who Cares? We Do!’. October is dedicated to palliative care and awarness raising events that will be held in Chisinau, Bali, Orhei, Soroca, and Taraclia.

An exhibition of photographs entitled ‘Who Cares? We Do!’ will be mounted in central Chiisnau and will continue for sveeral weeks. On October 11, there will be held the final of the IDEA - HOSPICE Football Cup, while on October 29 – a charity concert at the National Philharmonic “Sergey Lunkevich”. For the first time, bloggers and journalists will form part of he team of caregivers within the event “One day with the team of caregivers”.

Moldova integrated palliative care into the health system in 2010, when a series of services started to be funded with public money. However, the limited access to palliation services and pain medication and insufficient public funding are the most serious challenges faced by this sector. In order to improve access to palliative care, the National Association of Palliative Care submitted a national palliative care program to the Ministry of Health, which is to be endorsed.

In Moldova there are 20,000 people involved in giving palliative care – about 50 professionals, 100 volunteers and over 19,000 caregivers. Palliation services have been provided to patients suffering from incurable diseases in terminal stages starting with 2000, though mobile homecare teams, hospice units and wards wit beds in public institutions.

About one third of the persons who need palliative care suffer from cancer. Others suffer from progressive heart, lung, kidney or brain diseases or chronic life-threatening diseases, including HIV and drug-resistant TB.