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World Hospice and Palliative Care Day: celebrating twinning and Albania’s only hospice

10 October 2008

Sue Ryder Care is marking World Hospice and Palliative Care Day by celebrating twinning initiatives that are helping to provide specialist and expert end-of-life care services across the world. 

Since 2006, Sue Ryder Care staff (including nurses, doctors, chaplains, volunteer coordinators and complementary therapists) have been exchanging their own experiences of palliative care with overseas partners in Poland and Albania; building knowledge and imparting skills through our twinning programme.

Mike Garnett who works for Sue Ryder Care – Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds has been involved in the hospice’s twinning with Ryder Albania’s only hospice, he said:

“I know first hand the importance of providing palliative care to people who are living with life limiting conditions such as cancer. We’re here to make sure that people who are not going to get better can still enjoy the best quality of life for as long as they live. At Sue Ryder Care we believe that everyone who needs our expert care should be able to receive it and live their lives with dignity, independence and free from pain.

“We have been twinning with the Albania hospice since for two years and some members of the staff from the East Europe care centre came last year to visit Wheatfields hospice to exchange ideas and compare the services each hospice offers.”

Ryder Albania, run the country’s only hospice which reaches over 18,000 patients and family members.

Victoria Shewell, Programmes Officer for Sue Ryder Care International added:

“Palliative care in Albania is still far from being seen as a human right.

“66% of terminal cancer patients in Albania receive no palliative care.

“Our twinning programmes help us to share skills across the world and develop care services where they are most needed.”

Find out more about Sue Ryder Care's international work and our palliative care in the UK.

World Hospice and Palliative Day Care Fact Box:

• World Hospice and Palliative Care Day takes place on the second Saturday of October every year and is organised by a committee of the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance, a network of hospice and palliative care national and regional organisations that support the development of hospice and palliative care worldwide
• The aim of the day is to raise funds and awareness of the needs - be they spiritual, social, medical or practical - of people living with a life limiting conditions and their families
• About 70 countries take part every year in the celebrations with activities including public awareness raising campaigns, advocacy with policy makers, fundraising events and public launches.

 

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