Abstract
D
The resolution considers provision of palliative care to be an “ethical responsibility” of health systems and called on health care professionals throughout the world to fulfill an “ethical duty” to “alleviate pain and suffering, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual, irrespective of whether the disease or condition can be cured.”
The number of people currently requiring palliative care is estimated at 40 million worldwide and the resolution notes that many more will require such care in the future, given the overall ageing of the global population and the increased prevalence of noncommunicable diseases.
By passing this resolution, the delegates to the World Health Assembly called on States, inter alia, to support palliative care initiatives, including education and training, quality improvement, and access to essential medicines, including controlled medicines for symptom management. It requested the director-general and staff at the World Health Organization (WHO), inter alia, to “develop and strengthen … evidence-based guidelines on the integration of palliative care into national health systems, across disease groups and levels of care.”
Deserving particular mention is the inclusion of spiritual care as an equal and full component of palliative care. While also mentioned in the WHO definition of palliative care, the spiritual needs of patients receive insufficient attention by many health care professionals. Cecily Saunders, the founder of the Hospice and Palliative Care Movement, described the concept of ‘total pain’ as physical, psychosocial, and spiritual pain. This resolution builds on her vision and the vision of many palliative care advocates, clinicians, and others to provide comprehensive compassionate care to those with serious and complex illness.
In this regard, the first organizational meeting of a Global Network for Spirituality and Health was held in Washington, DC, at the George Washington University in September 2013. This was followed by the first Leaders' Council meeting in April 2014 at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, convened by The George Washington University's Institute for Spirituality and Health and Caritas Internationalis. This global network was formed to enhance the provision of high-quality comprehensive and compassionate care to patients and families globally through the integration of spirituality into health systems. Spirituality is broadly defined and inclusive of a range of beliefs, practices, and expressions of ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence and connectedness.
Empirical evidence, patient and family experience, and theoretical frameworks support the critical role spirituality plays in the care of patients, particularly those with chronic and complex illness. Several consensus conferences have concluded that suffering, psychosocial and spiritual, must be attended to with the same intensity as relief of physical pain.1,2 These conferences were based on evidence that spiritual care is a fundamental component of high-quality health care and that this aspect of care is most effective when it is recognized and reflected in the attitudes and actions of both patients and health care providers.
The Global Network in Spirituality and Health was formed to bring together interdisciplinary clinicians, integrative health practitioners, therapists, researchers, educators, philosophers, theologians, policy makers, as well as patients and families to work together to integrate spirituality into health systems around the world.
The members of the Global Network in Spirituality and Health congratulate WHOI for passing the important resolution in palliative care. We offer our expertise and resources to clinicians and others working to address the total suffering of patients and families, and to honor the dignity of the people we serve.
For more information please see www.GNSAH.org.