Physical Health Nepal Project #49449

Partnering to Deliver Palliative Care in Nepal

by Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration Foundation

Project Report | Apr 4, 2022
The goal is simply to improve care

By Chuck Russell | Communication Lead

Eighty percent of the 30 million people in Nepal live in rural and remote villages. Often this means long hours and difficult travel to reach even basic healthcare.

More than 45,000 people living with cancer require palliative care in Nepal (this is likely an underestimate as many are undiagnosed). Many others face serious illnesses that affect their quality of life.

Although a National Palliative Care Strategy was adopted by the Nepali government in 2017, there is a shortage of qualified doctors and nurses trained in both children’s and adult palliative care.

Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration is helping to change that.

In January, with our partners the Nepal Association of Palliative Care, we launched a third collaborative, online training and mentoring program for Nepali healthcare providers. The 15 weekly, virtual education sessions connect participants from across Nepal with volunteer faculty from Nepal and Canada for training and patient case discussions.

And our Sunflower Children’s Network is providing online education supporting doctors and nurses caring for children in urban centres and rural regions.

The goal is simply to improve the care for children and adults with serious illnesses and for those needing palliative and end-of-life care in both urban and rural Nepal.

Your gift today helps provide vital training that will improve the daily lives of children and adults facing serious illness.

Photo: Chuck Russell/Two Worlds Cancer

Permalink

Dec 10, 2021
Insights - Nepal

By Dr. Simon Sutcliffe | President, Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration

Dear Friends of TWCC,

We want to share with you what has happened these past months as our programs endured, evolved and expanded throughout this pandemic.

The unfairness of inequities across the globe remain abundantly clear. Amid personal grief, the loss of friends and colleagues our partners continued to provide the best health, palliative, and end-of-life care possible despite the risks to themselves and their families.

Our volunteer team of healthcare experts expanded the reach of virtual education

As the pandemic started in 2020 and travel was not possible, our international team of volunteers quickly pivoted taking training and mentorship fully online via the Project ECHO model. ECHO stands for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes and is based on knowledge-sharing networks, led by expert interdisciplinary teams using video links to develop virtual communities with care providers.

This year in collaboration with our partners in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration has sustained eight separate programs reaching more than 500 participants with 75 video-linked sessions.

The topics included, introductory, intermediate and advanced education in adult and children’s palliative care, responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and palliative and end-of-life care in the Rohingya humanitarian crisis.

Our pediatric program evolves into the Sunflower Children’s Network

What started as a concept to focus on Children’s palliative care with our partners at the Hyderabad Centre for Palliative Care in India developed into the Sunflower Children’s Program. This year that program has expanded and is now the Sunflower Children’s Network.

The Sunflower Children’s Network supports clinical care and education so that children and adolescents with serious illness receive the care they need, no matter where they live.

From Five hubs, in South and Southeast Asia, care will expand to reach 1000s more children and adolescents, and their families.

TWCC launches an expanded one-year Pediatric Palliative Care Fellowship progam

In January 2021, in partnership with the Hyderabad Centre for Palliative Care, the Sunflower Children’s Network launched an innovative training program for physicians. The Pediatric Palliative Care Fellowship focusses on training doctors to become future specialists and leaders in pediatric palliative care in South and Southeast Asia.

Currently there are three pediatricians training in the program: Dr. Lannie Fofue and Dr. Xiohara Gentica, National Children’s Hospital, Philippines, and Dr. Ramesh Dampuri, Niloufer Hospital for Women and Children, Hyderabad, India.

“This fellowship is the best and first opportunity that we have when it comes to the development of pediatric palliative care (PPC) in the Philippines because it saves time, effort, and resources through our direct access to PPC specialists across the globe. Our aim is to produce more PPC specialists in our country and I can see that this fellowship program can guide our team in developing more sustainable training by continuing strong ties, building bigger networks of faculty, and replicating this program’s structure and strategy.” – Dr. Xiohara Gentica

TWCC and partners from Nepal and India present virtually at London Global Cancer Week 2021

On November 17th we joined our partners virtually from Nepal and India at London Global Cancer Week which brings together healthcare professionals from across the hemispheres.

Join us today by donating to Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration. Your generous donations will directly impact the care of children and adults facing cancer and other serious illness in South and Southeast Asia.

Links:

London Global Cancer Week Presentation November 2021

Permalink

Nov 30, 2021
Giving Tuesday 2021 - Shine Some Light

By Sandra S. Broughton | Executive Director

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.