How Palliative and Hospice Care are Organized in Ukraine (Review

Abstract

In the world, Palliative and Hospice Care (PHC) are approaches conceived to improve the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems; physical; psychosocial; spiritual. In Ukraine, the first efforts to develop PHC already have been made 20 years ago. In 2006-2017 the breakthrough was made. In our research, we have analyzed the activities of both governmental bodies and non-governmental organizations in the field of development of PHC. Our main conclusions are that PHC in Ukraine is just starting to develop; the philosophy of PHC just forming. Organizations which develop PHC are very young. As Ukraine is the former Soviet country, paternalistic traditions are very alive here so that many directives, orders and other documents go from above (from Ministry of Health mostly) and the grass-roots are rather rare. As many organizations have not yet undergone training yet, the main directions of the work to develop PHC are advocacy; improvement of the legislation; training for civic leaders, specialists and other stake-holders.