PallCHASE held its first side-event at the World Health Assembly

Image: Photos from WHA77 Interventions and PallCHASE Side Event 
Source: Dr Megan Doherty

Author: Joan Marston
Executive Committee Member of PallCHASE

Geneva, Switzerland – For the first time PallCHASE (Palliative Care in Humanitarian Aid Settings and Emergencies) participated actively in this year’s World Health Assembly 77 (WHA) both at a PallCHASE hosted side-event and also in developing and presenting interventions during the World Health Assembly. Our grateful thanks to the International Association of Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) and especially Dr Katherine Pettus for including two members of the PallCHASE Executive Committee (Dr Megan Doherty and Fr Rick Bauer) in their delegation to WHA, and for including them in the preparation and presentation of  these interventions.

Our side-event entitled Palliative Care in Humanitarian Settings: Conflict; Climate Change and Migration was held on the 26 May and we were fortunate to have obtained  generous hosting by the World Council of Churches in their building in Geneva. Three members of the PallCHASE Executive Committee were present in person. Fr Richard Bauer coordinated the programme; Dr Megan Doherty presented on education for health care providers and her work in Bangladesh and other countries; and Dr Kathryn Richardson who works with MSF spoke to different aspects of providing Palliative Care in humanitarian settings. Dr Mhoira Leng and Joan Marston contributed through recorded videos. Dr Leng spoke on the subject of palliative care in conflict settings, and on her heartbreaking experiences in the acute conflict situation in Gaza as well as her  moving interactions with the students that she had taught on the first Palliative Care Diploma in Gaza and who are working throughout this conflict (https://youtu.be/2xYziy-80fk?si=VsitrILKBTnld8Oz)

Dr Athul Manuel, with the National Health Mission in Kerala, India, then spoke eloquently of the many ways that palliative care practitioners, organisations and volunteers had provided essential support through both the Kerala floods and the Covid-19 pandemic. (https://youtu.be/W1UPX4RnMVk?si=To1nQQdBE92xVHbf)

Mariya Vynnetska, a Ukrainian psychologist working from her present base in Singapore described her personal experiences of the war that led to her leaving Ukraine.  Together working with her colleagues of The Soul Psychology Centre, a Ukrainian NGO based in Kyiv, they reach out to provide trauma support, counselling and training to people living across Ukraine and to refugees in other countries. (https://youtu.be/vlaj4qRNpQw?si=O7xUiKSYQ6H8MpXO)

Our wonderful speakers highlighted what can be done to provide palliative care in humanitarian settings despite the multitude of challenges in these settings.

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