Informe del congreso internacional 2013 de la Asociación Europea de Cuidados Paliativos

La Asociación Europea de Cuidados Paliativos (EAPC) celebró su XIII Congreso anual en Praga, la capital checa, donde médicos y proveedores públicos de atención de la salud promovieron los cuidados paliativos como un derecho humano. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

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The European Association of Palliative Care (EAPC) recently held its 13th Annual Congress in Prague, attended by thousands of clinicians, public health care providers, and advocates from all over the world. Palliative care, a relatively new medical discipline, is a multidisciplinary “approach” according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) definition. It supports the physical, psychosocial and spiritual well-being of patients and their families facing serious illness. It is provided in teams ideally consisting of physicians, nurses, social workers, spiritual counsellors, pharmacists and volunteers. Palliative care often aims to control a patient’s distressing symptoms and pain, rather than to cure a disease. In order to accomplish this, providers must have adequate access to medical opioids, which are regulated under the UN drug conventions and the domestic laws of all UN Member States. The European Society of Medical Oncologists recently called the lack of access to medical opioids in 80 percent of the world a “global pandemic of untreated pain”.

Dr Willem Scholten, formerly of the WHO essential medicines project, shared the latest research on global inequality of access to pain medicine. Just over one-fifth of the world’s population consumes 93.8 percent of all licitly produced morphine. At the same time, 4.7 billion people (out of a total world population of 6.5 billion) live in countries where medical opioid consumption is near to zero. Following a detailed analysis of current global consumption levels versus projected adequate consumption levels, Dr Scholten asked if “global production will be able to keep pace with medical demand.

There was concentrated focus at the Congress on promoting palliative care as a human right, including the launch of the Prague Charter. Several sessions discussed barriers to opioid medicines, and particularly the international laws that control access on the one hand, and guarantee human rights on the other.

See below the full report.

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