The Ministry of Health does not approve the developed normative documents on palliative care

For almost 3 years, the draft of the Standards for the provision of palliative and hospice care has been in the Ministry of Health for approval. Similarly, for more than 2 years, the project of the State strategy for the development of palliative and hospice care in Ukraine for the period up to 2022 has been under consideration in the relevant ministry. These two documents, developed by experts of the NGO "Ukrainian League for the Development of Palliative and Hospice Care", if adopted, would significantly change the standards and approaches of providing palliative and hospice care in Ukraine for the better. Anatolii Tsarenko, deputy chairman of the board of the "Ukrainian League for the Development of Palliative and Hospice Care", told about it.

"The current unsatisfactory state of palliative care is caused by a number of factors, the main one of which is the imperfection of the regulatory and legal framework that regulates the provision of such care both in outpatient settings, including at home, and in hospitals," Tsarenko notes.

Among other reasons: insufficient funding, lack of professional personnel who have received special training in matters of providing assistance to the terminally ill, lack of material and moral motivation among medical personnel, psychologists and social workers, etc.

The "Ukrainian League for the Development of Palliative and Hospice Care" also draws attention to the insufficient interdepartmental cooperation of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Policy, as well as poor communication between specialists of the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of medical care, medical and social institutions.