The main tasks of the "League" are to force the state to provide pain relief and to train "palliative care personnel"

The problems of analgesia for the terminally ill and the shortage of personnel for palliative departments are the most critical issues today for the relevant Ministry of Health and the Government. On the eve of the formation of the Budget of Ukraine, the public should update these problems and maximally help the Government to avoid mistakes that led to the current difficult situation. This was discussed during the presidium meeting of the "Ukrainian League for the Development of Palliative and Hospice Care" (hereinafter - the League), which took place in Kyiv the other day.

Discussing the problems of analgesia, the head of the "League" Vasyl Knyazevich emphasized that the need to obtain it is covered by the state by only 20%, and this is unacceptable for a country that has chosen a European vector of development. Availability on the market and physical accessibility of the patient to painkillers are two key problems today.

As Volodymyr Tymoshenko, deputy chairman of the "League" board, explained, every year our state submits an application for the need for narcotic drugs to the International Narcotics Control Board (IDC). The quota is formed by the relevant ministry and approved by the Government before submission to the international structure. Thus, the amount of drugs declared by the state is supplied to the country. According to experts, if Ukraine's needs are formed solely based on those indicators that the state can pay for with budget funds, then palliative care in the country will be destroyed, and the sick will continue to die without receiving relief before death. Hundreds of thousands of patients, for whom the state "will not have enough" money, will not be able to purchase painkillers even with their own funds, because they will simply not be available on the market.

"From the public organization, we must also form a proposal for a pharmacy network, which should be in every region. After all, in most cases, in pharmacies, there are mostly injectable drugs that are purchased with state funds. If there are 2 pharmacies in the region that have the right to sell narcotic painkillers, and a person cannot travel 100 km there every day, then, as we understand, no protocols are followed, the seriously ill does not receive any relief," Vasyl Knyazevich emphasized.

Another important problem is the lack of approved palliative care protocols and qualified personnel. Raisa Moiseyenko, the first deputy head of the board of the "League", reminded that "The strategy for the development of palliative care has been developed for a long time, but it got lost somewhere in the corridors of power." In addition, the draft law "On palliative care" has not yet been prepared by the ministry, so the public needs to draft it on their own and offer their version to the Ministry of Health. Today, according to Moiseyenko, the Ministry of Health refuses to approve developed protocols for palliative care with orders, offering to be guided by international sources.

This significantly complicates the work of medical personnel, so it was decided to approve protocols through associations and congresses of specialists so that they could be legalized and used in practice. The participants of the meeting emphasized that there are currently no post-graduate education courses on care for palliative patients.

"Who will teach medical and social workers to work with palliative patients? To date, the budget does not provide for free training of nurses to care for the terminally ill. The nurse must pay UAH 1,400 today. Academy of postgraduate education for completing the training cycle. We are not talking about social workers at all," stressed Anatolii Tsarenko, deputy chairman of the "League" board. Vasyl Knyazevich suggested that the next meeting of the presidium of the NGO "Ukrainian League for the Development of Palliative and Hospice Care" be fully devoted to the issue of personnel training.

The participants of the meeting approved the measures to celebrate the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (World Hospice and Palliative Care Day), which this year falls on October 14, planned the steps to prepare for the III National Congress on Palliative Care and the ceremony of awarding the Order of St. Panteleimon the Healer in 2018 .

In addition to board members, representatives of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, the Department of Health and Social Policy of the Kyiv City State Administration, regional organizations of the "League" took part in the meeting of the presidium of the "Ukrainian League for the Development of Palliative and Hospice Care".