Palliative Care: A Human Rights Approach to Health Care

Abstract

This report compiles the results of a research project aimed at describing the current palliative care situation in eight Latin American countries. The project’s general objective—to raise awareness and influence public policy around the need to approach palliative care from a human rights perspective—was achieved through rapprochement among professionals from various fields in the region, which in and of itself is a key step forward in terms of bringing together communities that defend patients’ rights with communities that advocate a drug policy embracing a public health focus.

We hope that this diagnostic report is useful for professional associations, health professionals, patients’ rights advocates, drug policy reform activists, and decision makers, who can rely on its findings to better integrate palliative care into general health services and to use human rights language to promote public policy reform and guarantee the human rights of those in the Americas who suffer from severe and chronic pain.