The human rights approach to palliative care is about using advocacy – that is, speaking out from the patients’ points of view – to ensure that governments fulfil their obligations to these patients in terms of their right to palliative care.
The human rights approach to palliative care is about using advocacy – that is, speaking out from the patients’ points of view – to ensure that governments fulfil their obligations to these patients in terms of their right to palliative care.
Palliative care is part of the right to health as recognised by the United Nations. Under this right, Governments must ensure that their citizens have access to “preventative, curative and palliative health services” (CESCR, 2000). However, these rights are all too seldom realised.
On Human Rights Day, we examined the connection between palliative care and human rights. We also looked at the work that has been done by human rights experts and palliative care advocates to ensure that the human right to palliative care is fulfilled…read more