# 8234
Almost exactly two years ago, in His Bags Are Packed, He’s Ready To Go, I wrote about the end-of-life home hospice care my father was receiving, and how our family had worked to ensure he could spend his final days at home, and pain free. As difficult as those final days were for everyone involved, my father was lucky.
In many regions the world, effective pain management and palliative care simply isn’t readily available, and millions of people die each year without such merciful interventions.
Today the World Health Organization has released the first global Atlas illustrating this great unmet need and the huge inequalities across countries. Below you’ll find excerpts from the press release, and a link to the new document.
First ever global atlas identifies unmet need for palliative care
News release
28 January 2014 | GENEVA/LONDON - Only 1 in 10 people who need palliative care - that is medical care to relieve the pain, symptoms and stress of serious illness - is currently receiving it. This unmet need is mapped for the first time in the "Global atlas of palliative care at the end of life", published jointly by the WHO and the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance (WPCA).
More than just pain relief
Palliative care is more than just pain relief. It includes addressing the physical, psychosocial and emotional suffering of patients with serious advanced illnesses and supporting family members providing care to a loved one.
About one third of those needing palliative care suffer from cancer. Others have progressive illnesses affecting their heart, lung, liver, kidney, brain, or chronic, life-threatening diseases including HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis.
It is estimated that every year more than 20 million patients need palliative care at the end of life. Some 6% of these are children. The number of people requiring this care rises to at least 40 million if all those that could benefit from palliative care at an earlier stage of their illness are included. Hospice and palliative care often encompasses some support to family members, which would more than double care needs.
Greatest need in low-and middle-income countries and for noncommunicable diseases
In 2011, approximately 3 million patients received palliative care, the vast majority at the end of their life. Although most palliative care is provided in high-income countries, almost 80% of the global need for palliative care is in low- and middle-income countries. Only 20 countries worldwide have palliative care well integrated into their health-care systems 1.
