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Palliative care is “neglected” worldwide, report says

BMJ 2011; 342 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d3510 (Published 06 June 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;342:d3510
  1. Peter Moszynski
  1. 1London

Every year, tens of millions of people around the world with life threatening illnesses suffer unnecessarily from severe pain and other debilitating symptoms because they lack access to palliative care, says a report by Human Rights Watch.

Although the World Health Organization considers palliative care an integral component of cancer care and has urged countries to improve its availability, “too often palliative care continues to be the neglected child of the healthcare family, receiving low priority from health policy makers and healthcare professionals and almost no funding.”

Fifty years ago, the world community adopted the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, …

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