Strategic Planning by the Palliative Care Steering Committee of the Middle East Cancer Consortium

Abstract

High quality comprehensive palliative care is a critical need for millions of patients and families, but remains only a dream in many parts of the world. The failure to do a strategic planning process is one obstacle to advancing education and pain prevention and relief. The Middle Eastern Cancer Consortium Steering Committee attendees completed an initial strategic planning process and identified "developmental steps" to advance palliative care. Underscoring the multi-disciplinary nature of comprehensive palliative care, discipline-specific planning was done (adult and pediatric cancer and medicine, pharmacy, nursing) in a separate process from country-specific planning. Delineating the layers of intersection and differences between disciplines and countries was very powerful. Finding the common strengths and weaknesses in the status quo creates the potential for a more powerful regional response to the palliative care needs. Implementing and refining these preliminary strategic plans will augment and align the efforts to advance palliative care education and pain management in the Middle East. The dream to prevent and relieve suffering for millions of patients with advanced disease will become reality with a powerful strategic planning process well implemented.

Middle East Experience in Palliative Care

“…6 Fear of drug addiction and what is known as opoiodophobia is also present in these units and needs to be addressed. 27…”

“…6 Fear of drug addiction and what is known as opoiodophobia is also present in these units and needs to be addressed. 27 In 2010, there were more than 15 comprehensive cancer centers in Saudi Arabia and well-established PC units with integrated home-based care. These units serve more than 500 patients/year combined.…”

Palliative Care in the Muslim-Majority Countries:The Need for More and Better Care

“…A summary of the situation analyses conducted by IOELC has also been published (Bingley & Clark, 2009). More recently, the MECC Palliative Care Steering Committee has published country-specific situation analysis for the MECC membership as well as two additional MMC's (Lebanon and Saudi Arabia) (Moore et al, 2011). These situation analyses, while useful, were based on input from a relatively small number of healthcare workers from each jurisdiction.…”

The Fight against the “Human Disaster” of Cancer in the Middle Eastern Countries

“…13 Many participants in the conference agreed that the support of organizations such as MECC, ASCO and WHO can be very useful in establishing and running successful palliative care programs. For example, support by the government of the State of Qatar 14 and by the Republic of Yemen 15 was clear, and, although at a tertiary care level, had nevertheless established large units for palliative care.…”