Conference “The role of churches and religious organizations in the provision of palliative care…”

On the 25th and 26^th of May in Irpen city the conference “The role of churches and religious organizations in the provision of palliative care. Access to pain management as a necessary component of care “took place. The event was held under the auspices of the Public Council under the Ministry of Health concerning cooperation with the Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations, also attended by social activists and representatives of NGOs. The Roman Catholic Church was represented by sisters Maria Miraculous Medallion s. Barbara Peterlin МС and s. Vaseline Savchenko and coordinator of the Kyiv Union of Catholic doctors Elena Vyshynska.

 As we know from official statistics, at present in Ukraine means of pain relief don’t have about 85% of those who are in need. Every year in Ukraine the number of people who need palliative care reaches 600 thousand including 18 thousand children. The purpose of the conference was to attract the attention of society and authorities to this problem, to form a unified position of churches and religious organizations in such a difficult question.

 Interesting reports have been presented including s. Yosafat Drobyk “Theology of suffering” (UGOC), Pastor Martin Sorge “Accompanying relatives of seriously ill”, also the issue of the Institute of Health Care Chaplaincy in Ukraine was discussed. But the most interesting part was sharing the experience of different organizations, discussing the problems faced by volunteers while helping seriously ill. Sister Barbara Peterlin МС gave many interesting examples of volunteers of Vincentian Family’s work.

As a result of the conference was drawn up a Resolution with help of which representatives of all the churches appealed to the faithful and to the government of Ukraine. With the active participation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine some more paragraphs were included to the Resolution. They are about the necessity of giving palliative care by state for children under 18 years (currently the MOH and the Ministry of Social Policy children under 18 are not eligible for this type of assistance) and about the creation of joint Commission of the Ministry of Health to simplify the mechanisms of access to pain relief to patients.

25-26/05/2016