Palliative care and hospice services outside of Azerbaijan

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines palliative care as a medical specialty that addresses physical, psychological, social, legal, and spiritual domains of care delivered by an interdisciplinary team of professional  health care providers, social workers, psychologists, spiritual leaders, and family members as well as other specialists. The palliative care has been widely accepted and recognised as the human right and many more countries these days have palliative care and hospice services, though they are at the different levels of development. However, according to WHO and World Association of Palliative Care and Hospice, one third of the world population has no access to palliative and hospice care and even more countries have no or limited access to narcotic analgetics and decent pain management services. Good quality palliative care requires availability of adequately trained health care and non-medical professionals, access and availability of essential pain medications, including opiates, as well as solid educational curriculum taught in medical universities, nursing schools, social work - and teacher-training institutions, as well as religious schools.