Saluting the Irish Who Have Been Contributing to the Development of Palliative Care in Africa

On World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (11th October), I want to salute the Irish people and organisations who have been contributing to the development of palliative care in Africa. Every death matters, and research by the African Palliative Care Association and the Irish Hospice Foundation shows how similar our wishes and needs are at the end of life, but the challenges we face are markedly different. In Africa, less than one in ten have access to palliative care, with no access to pain relief – often not even paracetamol – at the end of life.

My recent research on Ireland’s contribution to palliative care in Africa identified 25 initiatives across eight African countries with significant Irish input. What struck me most was how these initiatives were frequently driven by the passion and commitment of an individual.

Let me tell you a little about just three of these individuals:

Dr Trish Scanlon, a paediatric oncologist from Wicklow, set up Tumaini La Maisha / Their Lives Matter in Tanzania in 2005, in collaboration with Ocean Road Cancer Institute and Muhimbili National Hospital. Trish’s primary focus is on curing cancer in children, and over the years she has increased the survival rate from one in ten to five in ten children. This impressive improvement still sadly means that five in ten of the children with cancer need palliative care, and she works with her team across a network of more than 100 hospitals across Tanzania to ensure that children who are incurable are provided with palliative care for the remainder of their short lives.

Much of the support for Tumaini La Maisha, which has over a thousand new patients each year, comes from Ireland, including significant multi-annual funding from Irish Aid. Trish also pays tribute to her former colleagues at Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, who provide considerable support as volunteers, through sharing their expertise and raising funds. If you would like to learn more about her work or support it, you can do so here.

Retired GPs from Ennis, County Clare, Dr Frank and Patricia Hassett founded Hospice Jinja in the Busoga region of Uganda in 2003 and for many years spent at least two months there providing palliative care to patients in their own homes, in one of the poorest regions in Uganda. In 2023, 1,300 patients were cared for. Most of the funding and the volunteers for Project Jinja come from County Clare, and you can read more about the work of Hospice Jinja and contribute to its work here.

One of the best known of our palliative care warriors is the redoubtable Dr Anne Merriman, who died earlier this year. I was proud to be in Botswana when the Irish Ambassador to South Africa announced the Irish Government’s ‘Dr Anne Merriman Award for Excellence in Palliative Care in Africa’. Dr Anne’s contributions include setting up Hospice Africa Uganda some 32 years ago, which cares for 2,000 patients annually at three sites in Uganda: Kampala, Hoima and Mbarara; pioneering an affordable and practical way of delivering morphine in Uganda (which has become a model for the rest of Africa); and setting up the Institute of Hospice & Palliative Care in Africa, which has trained 10,000 people across Africa in palliative care. Read more and contribute here.

Truly, those of us who care about, and are working for, more accessible palliative care in Africa are standing on the shoulders of giants.

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