Palliative care is an essential component of cancer patient management. The practice helps manage patients’ symptoms, improve their quality of life, and ensure patients’ comfort at the end of their lives. Palliative care is particularly important in Africa, where the majority of cancer patients are diagnosed with late-stage diseases, which often have more symptoms and lower survival rates. Despite the need, there is a lack of healthcare workers trained in palliative care. The insufficient number of trained palliative care providers is particularly troublesome in Senegal, where an estimated 70,000 people require palliative care.
In partnership with AAI partner hospital Hôpital Général Idrissa Pouye (HOGIP) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), BVGH organized a 3-day palliative care workshop in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop, which was based on the Palliative Care Interdisciplinary Curriculum, was taught by international experts Dr. Joe El Khoury (Centre Hospitalier Public d’Hauteville, France), Dr. Khadidjatou Kane (Massachusetts General Hospital, USA), Dr. Guillaume Economos (Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France), Dr. Coumba Gueye (Joliot Curie Institute, Senegal), and Ms. Laura Fontbonne (Centre Hospitalier Public d’Hauteville, France). Over 40 nurses, midwives, social workers, and health technicians from Dakar attended the workshop, which featured lectures, discussions, and interactive role-play sessions covering pain and symptom management, patient communication, offering palliative care in low-resource environments, and more.