Palliative and End-of-Life Care Development in Egypt

[from top left] Ayman Sabae /Shamseya CEO, Nevin El Nadi /Shamseya COO, Dr. Wessam Elsherief /Associate Professor of Clinical Oncology at the Kasr El-Ainy School of Medicine, Dr. Waleed Nafae /Palliative Care Consultant, Dr. Tandiar Samir /General Manager of Josaab Foundation

Shamseya is part of a global coalition that aims to alleviate unnecessary suffering among terminally-ill patients and nationally address the importance of end-of-life care and planning to ensure a healthy death for all Egyptians.

Current efforts include:

Raising public awareness on the importance of talk about death and dying
Developing tools that mainstream death-related discussion and preparation
Research in partnership with national and international institutions with the aim of developing an applicable and comprehensive national strategy
Dialogue to end the national crisis of opioid scarcity, unavailability and inaccessibility
Mapping local palliative and end-of-life care services and identifying key national players and including government and policy-makers in the discussion

Long-term goals:

Making palliative and end-of-life care available, accessible and affordable to all patients in need
Integrating advance directives in the Egyptian legislation
Making palliative care not restricted to oncology patients only.
Raising awareness and advocacy about the importance of palliative care, end-of-life care and the concept of a healthy death
Improving the quality, quantity and distribution of palliative care, hospice care and end-of-life care to be reachable at all stages of care.