The daily British newspaper, The Guardian, recently featured Uganda’s efforts over the last 30 years to enhance the availability of palliative care and increase access to morphine for those in need. Working in collaboration with Hospice Africa Uganda and other partners, the Palliative Care Association of Uganda (PCAU) has been involved in this undertaking for 24 years.

The Guardian article highlights the fact that the life-limiting health conditions that organizations like PCAU (and its stakeholders) deal with are incurable, and that people diagnosed with these conditions greatly benefit from palliation. Unfortunately, there is a lack of morphine – with only an estimated 11% of the 500,000 Ugandans needing palliative care able to access it. Even with this lack of access to morphine, Uganda is a model in terms of palliative care delivery in Africa. The entire article is available here.