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Thandeka Moyo, Health Reporter
MORE than 250 000 people in Zimbabwe need palliative care, with reports showing that only two percent receive it in the face of a growing prevalence of diseases like cancer, diabetes and HIV.
Deputy director of Non-Communicable Diseases in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Justice Mudavanhu, said there is a growing demand for palliative care in Zimbabwe.
“Although health institutions have the right services for palliative care provision, there is limited coverage of palliative care. There are high levels of stock outs of essential palliative care medicines and there are financial barriers that limit access to holistic palliative care,” he said.
“The need for palliative care in Zimbabwe is estimated at between 200 000 to 250 000 patients per year but only 2 percent are able to access the service.”
According to the Ministry, 95 percent of adults and children with non-communicable disease require palliative care.
HIV and drug resistant TB patients also require palliative care and they account for 5 percent of patients receiving palliative care in Zimbabwe.
Dr Mudavanhu said despite a growing demand for palliative care, there is inadequate palliative care trained personnel in our health institutions.
“There is a severe shortage of palliative care providers and a general lack of resources for palliative care delivery. Only 42 percent of health facilities in Zimbabwe have at least one palliative care trained health worker, the majority (79 percent) of these health workers are nurses,” he said.
“There are shortages in the supply of PC medicines as reflected by the frequency of emergency orders and prevalence of stock outs for tracer essential palliative care medicines.”
In Zimbabwe, more than 250 000 children and adolescents below 20 are diagnosed with cancer every year and 90 000 do not survive.
“Many more remain undiagnosed and unreported as 80 percent of these children do not have access to cancer screening. To this end there is a need for improved service delivery in the form of knowledge, skills and tools that enhance the early identification of patients who require palliative care and to increase screening and referral of patients to the next level of care,” said Dr Mudavanhu.
He said to address the challenges, there is a need to train more care providers in palliative care, advocate for more financing in palliative care, as well as promote palliative care amongst both care providers and communities.
“Since the rolling out of the Palliative Care strategic framework and implementation in April this year, 315 health professionals were trained in palliative care. 110 nurses and 330 health promoters were trained in early childhood cancer detection.
“Nurses who have benefited from the sensitisation meetings are further cascading down the palliative care integration information to fellow health professionals and the community at large including health workers,” said Dr Mudavanhu.
According to the World Health Organisation, a research published in the Journal of Pain and Symptoms Management estimates the need for children’s palliative care in Zimbabwe to be the highest in the world at 120 per 10 000 people. — @thamamoe.
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