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Council of Europe: Palliative Care is a Human Right!

At the end of 2018, ECPM Member and Senator Rónán Mullen's report in the Council of Europe on Providing Palliative Care has been adopted the end of last year. This report affirms that Palliative Care is fundamental to human dignity and a component of the human right to health. Palliative care aims at the quality of life of both patients and their families. The Council of Europe asks the Member States to recognize palliative care as a human right and fully integrate it into their health-care system and to dedicate the necessary resources to it. 

The Assembly deeply regrets that on the organisation of palliative care, hundreds of thousands of people in Europe still do not have access to appropriate palliative care services and is concerned about the lack of access to appropriate pain relief leading to situations in which patients suffer for months and even years and experience avoidable painful deaths. 
Furthermore, the Governments should remove all obstacles that restrict access to pain-relieving medication in the context of palliative care, and ensure adequate training on palliative care for health-care professionals. They should also provide comprehensive support for informal caregivers, including respite services. 
Further is palliative care about dying with dignity and NOT about the dignity to die. They follow the definition of the WHO that the starting point of palliative care which "affirms life, regards dying as a normal process and intends neither to hasten nor to postpone death"
Or as Pope Francis said on the meeting of the "World Medical Association" on "end of life issues" 16 November 2017: "And even if we know that we cannot always guarantee healing or a cure, we can and must always care for the living, without ourselves shortening their life, but also without futilely resisting their death. This approach is reflected in palliative care.... as it opposes what makes death most terrifying and unwelcome - pain and loneliness

Click here for the report and resolution
Click here for an article of the European Association of Palliative Care on this report
Click here for a link with pictures of the meeting in the Council of Europe organized by Senator Mullen in collaboration with Sallux with representatives of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development of the Council of Europe, the European Association of Palliative Care and ADF International. This meeting was organized as preparation for the report

Photos: As a preparation for the report, Rónán Mullen organized in collaboration with Sallux, the think tank of the ECPM, a meeting with representatives of the secretariate of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development of the Council of Europe, European Association of Palliative Care and ADF International
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