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President's
message
2005
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By
Marilène
Filbet, President EAPC -2005-2007
Welcome
message from the new President
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It
is a great honour to have been appointed President of the
EAPC, and to follow in the footsteps of Professor Ventafridda,
Professor Hanks and Professor Kaasa. I shall make every effort
to prove myself worthy of this honour and to follow the good
examples set by my predecessors.
Thanks to them, the EAPC has grown in stature and now represents,
as it stands in June 2005, 32 associations, collective members
from 21 different countries and a total movement of around
50,000 people in Europe. It is necessary to continue to make
progress in improving the quality of palliative care throughout
Europe, and we have to face up to a number of challenges in
the development of this field.
The field of palliative care has extended well beyond patients
suffering from cancer; the reality of an aging population
must lead to progress in palliative care for the elderly and
support for those close to them. Palliative care must also
be of benefit to those suffering from pathologies other than
cancer, as well as to those with AIDS and severe disabilities.
The ways of organising and financing healthcare are different
in each of the countries in Europe and, rather than putting
forward a single model for the development of palliative care,
we must establish standards that can serve as common reference
points. Similarly, in the interests of fairness, we should
affirm the necessity for all people to have access to palliative
care services, whatever their financial situation may be,
and we should promote among the various European institutions
access to palliative care services as a right of all citizens.
Another challenge is that of the diversity within Europe –
the various professionals and volunteers do not always have
the same training or the same roles in each country and, 178
furthermore, language barriers and cultural barriers can limit
exchanges. The socio-economic changes in our developed countries,
the heavy financial burden of old age, individualism and the
loss of cultural and religious bases, have contributed to
a strong movement – promoted by the media – in
favour of the legalisation of euthanasia. We must remain vigilant
in our defence of the values that unite us and speak up for
our more fragile patients.
It is these differences that give our association its richness
and it is necessary to step up exchanges, establish links
and build bridges between different countries, between professionals
and volunteers, between different specialist fields, and with
other European organisations, particularly those operating
in the fields of pain management, care of the elderly and
of children, cancer and bereavement. We must work creatively!
We have the means to meet these objectives, such as task forces
in the areas of education, standards, ethics and the development
of palliative care in Europe, and a research network. These
groups must be very open to different professionals and to
different countries so that each member organisation of EAPC,
as well as its individual members, feel that they are represented
and involved in our association. Each member of the EAPC can
take the initiative to create a task force, and the publications
of the various groups will be available on our site.
By way of our communication tools, such as the website and
the EAPC’s journals, the European Journal of Palliative
Care and Palliative Medicine, you are invited to join us and
to have your say. Do not hesitate to send us your proposals
for publications, your experiences and your comments. Do not
forget our forthcoming important meetings: the research forum
in Venice in 2006 and the next congress in Budapest in 2007.
All the details that you need in order to take part and send
in your abstracts are available on our website: www.eapcnet.org.
I hope that each one of you will have been able to organise
or participate in an event to help make the first day for
palliative care on 8 October 2005 a success.
I
look forward to hearing from you.
Marilène
Filbet, President of the EAPC
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