Special Article
Vietnam's Palliative Care Initiative: Successes and Challenges in the First Five Years

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2010.04.009Get rights and content
Under an Elsevier user license
open archive

Abstract

In 2005, Vietnam's Ministry of Health (MoH) launched a palliative care initiative that uses the World Health Organization (WHO) public health strategy for national palliative care program development. With international financial and technical support, the initiative has made significant early progress. A rapid situation analysis in 2005 led to national Guidelines on Palliative Care in 2006, radically improved opioid prescribing regulations in 2008, the training of more than 400 physicians in palliative care by early 2010 using three curricula written especially for Vietnam, and the initiation of palliative care services in some hospitals and in the community. Yet, access to palliative care services remains very limited. Many challenges must be overcome to reach the goal of access for all to essential palliative care services that are integrated into the systems of cancer care, HIV/AIDS care, and primary care. Going forward, crucial aspects of the initiative will be continued commitment to palliative care by the MoH, careful planning and targeted funding that address each part of the WHO public health strategy, ongoing expert technical support, and collaboration among international technical and financial supporters.

Key Words

Palliative care
AIDS
cancer
Vietnam
developing country
opioid

Cited by (0)

This work was supported in part by Cooperative Agreement Number U62/CCU122408-04 from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC.