Authors: Erin Das and Favila Escobio
World Hospice and Palliative Care Day
In June, a group of colleagues — Favila Escobio, Omar Shamieh, Hibah Osman, Tamam Aloudat, Basem Shaher, Maher Aboumayaleh, Zuhair Alkarrat, and Rachel Coghlan — published a powerful correspondence in The Lancet highlighting the urgent need to prioritize palliative care within the Syrian context.
They wrote:
“After 14 years of war and decades of authoritarian rule, Syria faces the complex task of rebuilding the country, including a health-care system deeply affected by years of prolonged conflict.
Before 2011, non-communicable diseases were estimated to account for 77% of all fatalities in the country. Although comprehensive data are scarce, these life-limiting conditions have likely increased in the context of years of war. The Syrian armed conflict has also resulted in approximately 11% of the population experiencing war-related traumatic injuries.”
Their words capture the immense human cost of conflict — not only through lives lost but through prolonged suffering among those living with chronic disease, war-related injury, and serious illness. For millions of Syrians, pain, grief, and uncertainty have become daily realities. Yet amid this devastation lies an opportunity — to rebuild a health system that places compassion and dignity at its core for persons, families and communities to alleviate their suffering.
Reclaiming the Promise of Palliative Care
This year, as we celebrate World Hospice and Palliative Care Day under the theme “Achieving the Promise: Universal Access to Palliative Care,” we are reminded of a global commitment made over a decade ago.
In 2014, the World Health Assembly passed its first and only resolution on palliative care, calling on all countries to “strengthen palliative care as a component of comprehensive care throughout the life course.” That resolution was — and remains — a promise: that every person, regardless of where they live or the challenges they face, should have access to care that relieves suffering and upholds dignity.
Rebuilding Health Systems Grounded in Compassion
Over a decade of conflict has left Syria’s health system fractured. Non-functional health care facilities. Health workers have fled or been displaced. Access to essential medicines and chronic disease care has been severely disrupted. Yet within this fragility, there is a call to act differently — to construct a healthcare system that includes the alleviation of suffering and the improvement of quality of life at its core through community engagement and compassion.
Palliative care offers a framework for doing exactly that. It is multidisciplinary, person-centered, and cost-effective. It acknowledges suffering as both a medical and social concern — and recognizes the inherent value of every human life, even in the most difficult circumstances. Integrating palliative care into Syria’s health system recovery would ease the burden of pain, life-limiting conditions, strengthen families and communities, and restore humanity to the act of healing itself.
A Shared Responsibility
On this World Hospice and Palliative Care Day, we join colleagues across the globe in calling on Syrian authorities, the World Health Organization, civil society, and the international community to ensure that palliative care is not treated as an afterthought in health planning — a part of the continuum of care and as a foundation of recovery of the health sector in Syria
Access to palliative care is not a privilege. It is a human right.
To achieve the promise of universal access, we must work collectively to ensure that every person — including those affected by war, displacement, or poverty — can live and die with dignity.
For Syria, this promise is not abstract. It is a moral and humanitarian imperative.
