Capacitating for Palliative Caregiving in India & beyond

The Social Innovation

Magnitude of the Problem, and its Root Causes

Globally, approximately 56.8 million people suffer during the final months and days of their lives due to a lack of essential palliative care. Despite significant resource utilization within clinical health systems, palliative care is accessible to only 14 percent of those who need it.

During their participation in the Accelerating Healthcare Access Globalizer, co-created by Ashoka and the Philips Foundation in 2020, the IPM team identified key factors contributing to the inaccessibility of palliative care:
-    Low public awareness and demand for palliative care
-    Limited policy support and funding for palliative care within the formal healthcare system
-    Insufficient training of medical professionals in palliative care
-    Lack of community capacity to provide comfort and care to the dying and their families without relying on medical services

Based on their systems change analysis, the IPM team made it their mission to address the gap in palliative caregiving capacity within the global healthcare systems by growing the field of palliative caregiving. 

Strategy to Catalyze a Network of Changemakers towards the Targeted Mission

Suresh Kumar himself had already been travelling widely, across India, as well as to Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka to raise awareness and train communities willing to take on the community based palliative care. 

An aha! moment for Suresh Kumar and the IPM team during the program was the realization of how heavily the work of building palliative caregiving capacity in different healthcare systems depended on Suresh. 

Recognizing the dependence of the work on his direct participation motivated Suresh Kumar to create a larger Global Volunteer Group to take the capacity building work forward without him having to be there.   

The field building strategy involves synergizing with other players in the palliative care field to spreading awareness about palliative care among community leaders and medical professionals and equipping their capacity to provide palliative care globally.

Some of the tactics they deployed towards the mission as a part of the strategy include:

1) Co-creating the Global Volunteer Group to build Awareness and Capacity for Palliative Caregiving

This group includes influential leaders in the field of palliative care from organizations like St. Christopher's Hospice London, National Public Management Centre Iran, Khon Kaen University Thailand, Palliative Care Association of Sri Lanka and Palliative Care Society of Bangladesh.
 
These leaders work on spreading awareness about death literacy and palliative care through university programs, medical conferences, and other events. So far, this group has been active in 53 countries, including Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Lebanon, and Iran. Suresh Kumar and IPM believe that their critical work will continue with or without them through this self-organized volunteer group of global leaders.  

They further expanded this by establishing the Global Palliative Health Doctors Network with more than 600 palliative care physicians from 60+ countries. 

2) Involving more Healthcare Professionals in Palliative Caregiving by Launching a Global Capacity Building Fellowship Program

The Global Volunteer Group has co-created a global Fellowship program with leaders in palliative care from London, Dhaka, and Pondicherry. This initiative has equipped over 550 people from more than 52 countries with the knowledge and skills needed to organize and run palliative care services in their regions. Participants include 70% doctors, 20% nurses, and 10% from other backgrounds. 

The success of the fellowship is evidenced by its integrated mentorship component, where many successful trainees continue to guide incoming participants. More than 50 mentors from 25 countries have been involved in mentoring the Fellowship trainees so far.