Global palliative nursing partnerships in the face of COVID-19

Abstract

Background: Mutually respectful and long-term global partnerships are critical to increasing hospice and palliative care access as a key component of universal health coverage. The importance of sustained, transnational palliative care collaboration has become more urgent since the COVID-19 pandemic. Aim: To provide an overview of characteristics for successful global palliative nursing partnerships. Method: The authors highlight the need to adapt approaches to meet the challenges and demands of COVID-19 in both clinical and academic spaces. Exemplars of thriving global partnerships are provided, alongside palliative nursing considerations and strategies to advance and sustain them. Conclusion: The role of nursing to drive and enhance palliative care partnerships, especially with equitable input from low- and middle-income country stakeholders, must be leveraged to advance shared goals and reduce serious health-related suffering around the world.

“I Am a Human”

“…In essence, End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium is a train-the-trainer program that can be further leveraged to build the generalist palliative care skills of collaborators to facilitate improved pain and symptom management, psychological and social care, spiritual screening, and cultural needs, and refer to specialized palliative care in the setting of refractory or complex needs. Ongoing international palliative nursing partnerships with both LMICs and high-income nations can help to advance didactic knowledge, improve educational resource access, and share care delivery models that are adapted to the low-resource settings that can aid the team in best using available personnel and strategically ranking future needs for service feasibility, efficacy, and growth 30 …”

“…Ongoing international palliative nursing partnerships with both LMICs and high-income nations can help to advance didactic knowledge, improve educational resource access, and share care delivery models that are adapted to the low-resource settings that can aid the team in best using available personnel and strategically ranking future needs for service feasibility, efficacy, and growth. 30 In terms of policy, it is imperative to remember that Liberia is a postwar, post-Ebola, and low-income nation that has experienced mass trauma, has inadequate economic infrastructure to meet public health needs, and remains severely resource constrained in both health and social care domains. 11,12,21 Although the government has invested in palliative care development in the past, 13,15 noncommunicable disease management, social welfare, and the alleviation of poverty are understandably prioritized nationally and regionally.…”

Position Statement on Cancer Nursing Leadership

“…The Institute of Medicine report on the Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health 10 and more recently the National Academy of Medicine report on the Future of Nursing 2020-2030 , 11 both call for nurses to lead interprofessional teams and healthcare systems to benefit patient outcomes and system-level efficiency. Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic powerfully illustrated the knowledge, skills, commitment, and leadership of nurses globally, it has also demonstrated why person-centered, culturally safe, evidence-based care and Universal Health Coverage 12 cannot be achieved without nurses and nurse leaders.…”