Pain and Palliative Care in the Developing World and Marginalized Populations: A Global Challenge Hardcover - 2004

From the publisher

Essential information for anyone involved in palliative care programs for deprived patients! In this comprehensive resource, leading healthcare professionals describe pioneering work on the front lines of pain and palliative care service planning and implementation for underserved populations. Pain and Palliative Care in the Developing World and Marginalized Populations: A Global Challenge explores the challenges and barriers preventing satisfactory pain management for patients who urgently need it. This book provides you with true accounts of palliative care programs from around the world to help you meet the needs of disadvantaged clients. This essential volume includes a Foreword written by a world leader in palliative care--Jan Stjernsward, Former Chief of the Cancer and Palliative Care Program of the World Health Organization and currently International Director of the Oxford International Centre for Palliative Care in the United Kingdom. Pain and Palliative Care in the Developing World and Marginalized Populations: A Global Challenge addresses issues of vital importance for the global health care community, such as:

• Why do so many people in the developing world suffer excruciating pain for months and years, when simple inexpensive medication could make them comfortable? They get MRI scans; why don't they have access to palliative care?
• Why do some palliative care programs fail to reach the needy? How could a palliative care delivery system be adapted to local needs?
• Why are medical and nursing students not taught the fundamentals of pain management? What direction should palliative care education take?
• Could health care resources be channeled to deliver care in a more just and equitable manner?

This book chronicles the efforts of ambitious pain management care professionals to confront these questions, working toward an end to needless, preventable pain and suffering. It examines their programs, and acknowledges their successes and failures to date, with commentaries by international experts. This indispensable manual discusses palliative care programs in developing countries such as India, Chile, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and others. Pain and Palliative Care in the Developing World and Marginalized Populations also offers an important look at pain management programs geared toward several specific underserved populations in both developing and developed countries, including Native Americans and inmates in a New Zealand prison. Illustrated with figures, graphs, and tables, this book is essential for practitioners and officials in both palliative and public health care. All proceeds from sales of this book will be used to support the growth of palliative care programs in India.