Hospice and Palliative Care in Africa: A Review of Developments and Challenges

The continent of Africa covers 22% of the earth's surface and contains over 800 million people and some 50 countries. Conflict, poverty, endemic diseases, and lack of clean water pose serious challenges across the continent, made worse by the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. Huge loss of life has impacted dramatically on both health systems and social and family support structures.

This book presents a review of hospice and palliative care development across Africa, conducted by a team of researchers at the International Observatory on End of Life Care, Lancaster University, UK. Using an approach specially designed for resource-poor settings, the project collected information against an agreed template to allow comparisons to be made between countries and regions. The resulting analysis gives insights into the challenges, opportunities, and successes faced by hospice and palliative care workers, country by country, throughout the 26 countries in Africa where a palliative care initiative is underway. The analysis is further complemented by ethnographic, historical, demographic, and epidemiological perspectives.

This is the first comprehensive reference work focusing exclusively on palliative care and hospice development in Africa. It will make fascinating reading for palliative care activists, grant makers, service providers, researchers, and others interested in health care innovations in Africa. It will also appeal to health care professionals interested in ethics, health care systems, and development within an international context, as well as to policy makers and planners.