Yet another 12 months have gone by in a flash and here we are at the end of the year. 2022 has been a busy year for the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network. Take a look at our milestones this year that was made possible by the team as well as by the support from all of you in the region!
JANUARY
The year kicked off with the Palliative Care Virtual Learning & Fellowship Forum organised by our Paediatrics Palliative Care Special Interest Group (SIG). Throughout the year, a total of four sessions were held. The Paediatrics Palliative Care SIG has prepared two exciting events for 2023…read more
FEBRUARY
We launched our new publication titled Seasons of Life: A Reflective Journey of Beginnings and Finales. A self-care book that incorporates art with tips on self-care and mindfulness, this book was conceptualised with our healthcare and frontline workers in mind. We managed to distribute over 1000 copies of the book to palliative care services in the Asia Pacific region to distribute to their healthcare workers, caregivers, etc…read more
MARCH
Beginning in March, our Quarterly Webinar Series brought four webinar sessions to 1500 participants from all over the world. This year, we also had the honour of having Dr Rosalie Shaw speak at one of the sessions…read more
APRIL
In Bangladesh, the coaching session of the MD students from the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), were underway in April 2022. The faculty team included Dr Akhileswaran Ramaswamy (Singapore), Dr Venga (Singapore) and Dr Pijush Sarker (Australia). The training was completed in May 2022.
MAY
In April 2022, BBC news reported that doctors across Sri Lanka said hospitals were running out of medicines and essential supplies as the country’s economic crisis worsened. Upon hearing the news, we contacted our Sri Lankan counterparts to find out how we could help. They shared that obtaining funds to purchase essential medication was one of the biggest issues, hence, we set up a campaign on Giving.sg (a local fundraising platform) in May to appeal to the public for donations. Before long, donations started coming in from benevolent individuals and we managed to raise over $10,228, surpassing our goal of $10,000. 100% of the funds raised will be donated to Apeksha Hospital Maharagama in Sri Lanka.
We held our 22nd Annual General Meeting on 11 May 2022 where the attendees were updated on the key highlights of programmes and activities of the year 2021. The 2021 Annual Report, along with the Audited Accounts for the year ending 31 December 2021 were adopted based on the majority of votes.
JUNE
The first batch of China training started in July 2021. Due to the Covid-19 situation, both fundamental teaching sessions and clinical case discussion sessions were conducted online weekly in the form of webinars. By the end of June 2022, the program in China completed 40 hours of fundamental teaching sessions and 40 hours of clinical case discussion sessions…read more
JULY
We produced our first ever interview-style video with Mr Tony Gui. Tony has been an active participant in our fundraising events for World Hospice & Palliative Care Day (WHPCD) for the past two years. In 2020, he pledged to cycle 300 km to raise $3,000. Not only did he complete 300 km over a span of three days, but he also surpassed his fundraising target and raised $10,000! This time, we sat down with him to find out what are his motivations, how he conquers his difficulties etc. Watch the full video above or click here!
AUGUST
A team comprising of Dr Ednin Hamzah (Chair, APHN), Assoc Prof Ghauri Aggarwal (Vice-Chair, APHN), Dr Jan Maree Davis (Member, APHN) and Mr Lee Poh Wah (CEO, Lien Foundation) visited several sites in Kuching as well as held meetings with key stakeholders over the period of the visit in August 2022 as part of the Lien Collaborative Scoping Visit to Sarawak…read more
The Lien Collab programme has been a successful collaboration between the APHN and AIIMS since 2016. This year, we ran the 5th Cohort – The Foundation Course for the CTC5 Lien Collab training, a five-day programme held from 14-19 August 2022 in India. A total of 18 faculty members (15 locals and three non-locals) and five support staff came together to conduct the programme which provided comprehensive coverage of topics from Introduction of Palliative Care to Symptom Management to Nursing Management…read more
SEPTEMBER
In September, we announced the Save the Date for our much anticipated 15th Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Conference (APHC) in Incheon, Korea! The conference is co-organised by APHN and the Korean Society for Hospice & Palliative Care and will be held from 4-7 October 2023 and our abstract submissions have OPENED! Head on over to our official website to submit your abstracts: http://aphc2023.kr/
OCTOBER
This year, the World Hospice & Palliative Care Day (WHPCD) theme was ‘Healing Hearts and Communities’. As WHPCD is an important opportunity to raise awareness about palliative care, we decided to organise a fundraising event: Go the Distance for Palliative Care, to celebrate and draw attention to palliative care as a component of the right to health.
Go the Distance for Palliative Care was a virtual challenge that invited participants from Singapore to join as individuals or as a team to either run or cycle for palliative care. They would pledge a target distance to complete in the month of October as well as a goal fundraising amount to reach by the end of the year.
Thanks to the passionate individuals who completed their pledged distances and the generosity of our donors, we managed to raise more than $7,000. This amount will be matched one for one by the government which would double the impact.
In conjunction with our fundraising event, we reached out to palliative care organisations in the Asia Pacific to share details of their WHPCD 2022 events with us. As a network, we wanted to help bring more awareness to the various advocacy efforts by the regional palliative care organisations. Hence, we gathered all the event information and put it up on our webpage, as well as promoted the events on our social media accounts.
The Mandarin Hospice Summit was conducted on 22 October 2022 in a webinar format. This conference has been organized by APHN’s Mandarin Special Interest Group since 2015. We had 19 speakers and moderators from various parts of Asia and the Netherlands speak on topics surrounding the summit theme of “Chinese Cultural Features of Palliative Care”.
The total attendance was around 150 with participants joining in from China, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, United States, Netherlands, Australia, Korea and Japan.
During the summit, we dedicated a segment to the graduation ceremony of our inaugural China Training of Trainers Programme. The top three hospitals presented their achievements to date, learnings from the training and future directions.
The summit continues to be APHN’s main platform to engage, advocate, set standards and share experiences with the Mandarin speaking world. The participation from a wide range of regions speaks for level of engagement.
NOVEMBER
A scoping team consisting of Dr Sylvia McCarthy, Dr Naveen Salins, Ms Joan Ryan, Mr Giam Cheong Leong and Ms Trudy Giam visited Timor Leste in November 2022 in order to assess the viability of a palliative care capacity building program as part of the Lien Collaborative for Palliative Care (Lien Collab) Program…read more
DECEMBER
As we looked back over our highlights of the year, we have enjoyed seeing the return of in-person activities which enabled us to meet many of you in the region. However, as parts of the world has begun to slowly heal from the pandemic, for some the threat of the virus still looms over them. We encourage everyone to reach out in anyway to help those who may need support in these times.
We would like to thank everyone who has been part of our Year 2022 and we look forward to another extraordinary year in 2023. In addition, we are very excited to meet many of you in Incheon, Korea for APHC 2023!
Written by Ms Trudy Giam (APHN Executive )