HospiceInnovation - DISCOVERING YOUR VOICE 2009

FROM WORLDWIDE PALLIATIVE CARE ALLIANCE, 34-44 BRITANNIA ST, LONDON WC1X 9JG, UK

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10 October 2009

Discovering the Voice of hospice and palliative care worldwide

Newsletter 16th July 2009 about this years Voices for hospices - read here

Allready registered for 2009 * Register your 2009 event

Theme
The theme for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day 2009 is "Discovering your voice".

This Day brings an opportunity for people living with life-limiting illnesses, their families and carers to make their voices heard about what hospice and palliative care means to them. This is also an opportunity for the many people around the world who are unable to access the care they need to raise their voices.

This Day is about discovering the voices of policy makers at a global and national level on this issue. The time has come to find out what the commitments of policy makers are to provide quality hospice and palliative care for all those that need it.

Around the world events will be taking place in approximately 70 countries enabling the voices of people living with life-limiting illness, their families and carers to be heard.

Events will include a global wave of Voices for Hospices concerts, education events and
public awareness raising activities.

Thousands of people around the world will be coming together to sing, dance, perform, recite poetry and speak out to raise awareness and funds for hospice and palliative care services across the globe on October 10 2009.

World Hospice and Palliative Care Day 2009 is themed as ‘Discovering your Voice' and calls upon the need to hear the voices of people around the world affected by life-limiting illness including patients, family members, carers, healthcare professionals, policy makers and funders.

Hospice and palliative care improves the quality of life of people affected by life-threatening illness such as cancer and AIDS, by preventing and relieving suffering through pain and symptom control, emotional, practical and spiritual support.

This year the annual World Hospice and Palliative Care Day is taking place with Voices for Hospices to host a wave of simultaneous concerts around the world. Any event which uses the voice is classed as a Voices for Hospices event, and will raise much needed awareness and funds to improve the quality of life of patients with life threatening illnesses across the globe, including countries where hospice and palliative care services are under-developed.

The first ever World Hospice and Palliative Care Day took place in October 2005 with more than 1,100 events taking place in 74 countries. It was launched by HRH Princess Anne in London, and supported by Archbishop Desmond Tutu who described it as "an important global event". In 2006, Bono and Sir Elton John marked the event by expressing their support for hospice care; in 2007 Dame Judi Dench added her voice to the campaign. In 2008, the UN rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health and the actor Gabriel Byrne offered their support.

To find out more and get involved in World Hospice and Palliative Care Day with Voices for Hospices 2009, visit http://www.worldday.org/, or email worldday@helpthehospices.org.uk.

For media enquiries:

Bansree Takodra: +44 (0) 20 7520 8251 / b.takodra@helpthehospices.org.uk
Katie Brewin: + 44 (0) 20 7520 8295 / k.brewin@helpthehospices.org.uk

Notes to editors

Palliative care, which is the kind of care given in hospices as well as some other settings, improves the quality of life of patients and their families. It aims to provide the best possible care for people living with and dying from a terminal illness and helps prevent and relieve suffering through expert pain and symptom relief as well through practical help, emotional and spiritual support.
Half of the world's 234 countries have no palliative care services available to their populations and one third have yet to take the first steps in planning to build service capacity.
In those countries where hospice and palliative care services are present, provision is mostly localised, with only 15% of countries having achieved a measure of integration with mainstream healthcare service providers.
There are currently six million cancer deaths and over 10 million new cases of cancer every year, rising to 15 million by 2020.
It is estimated that 100 million people could benefit from basic palliative care every year. This number is made up of 33 million people dying (60% of the total number dying in the world each year) and their 66 million family members, companions or carers (based on a conservative estimate of two people giving care and support for every person that dies). The actual number of people that receive palliative care is far lower. Although Sub-Saharan Africa has twice as many deaths per 1000 head of population annually as North America, it has only 1.5% of global palliative care resources compared to 55% in North America.
World Hospice and Palliative Care has been developed by the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance (a registered charity with an international board with a membership of national and regional hospice and palliative care organisations) and other global partners. Details of members of the World Day organising group can be found at www.worldday.org/partners
The secretariat for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day is provided by Help the Hospices, the leading charity supporting hospice care in the UK.