Advocacy Working Group
The Advocacy Working Group, led by Joan Marston and Fr. Rick Bauer, advocates for those personally affected by health-related suffering in humanitarian settings in order to bring about changes in policy, standards, and programmes. PallCHASE’s Advocacy Working Group is a global community and stand with our colleagues in humanitarian settings
Palliative care is recognized as a human right as it is a component of the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as stated by the Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Health. It is an integral part of health systems and services; and is an essential part of Universal Health Coverage. Despite this recognition, palliative care is seldom seen in humanitarian crises. This must change, and strong and effective advocacy is essential to bring about this change.
At PallCHASE, we believe that palliative care should be integrated into all healthcare, including in humanitarian crises and emergencies. We further believe that all healthcare providers should receive training and be competent in providing at least the basic principles of palliative care. This includes members of humanitarian health response teams. Further, we advocate for all palliative care practitioners to be taught principles of humanitarian response care. We believe that palliative care can be given alongside interventions to save lives and be integrated at all stages and triage levels in healthcare in humanitarian crises. We also advocate for palliative care being available across all ages. Finally, we believe access to palliative care medicines, especially opioids, is essential. Advocacy collaboration between palliative care and humanitarian health practitioners and agencies is essential, and we look forward to working together to promote the recognition of the need for palliative care to be available to those in humanitarian emergencies and crises.
If you are interested in joining the Advocacy Working Group, please contact joanmarymarston@gmail.com and richardbauermm@mac.com for more information.