Hospice and Palliative Care in Southeast Asia A review of developments and challenges in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines

Since the turn of the century, there has been worldwide growth in the effort to improve the quality of end of life care. Alongside these initiatives, growing interest in the international development of hospice and palliative care has created the need for an informed, in depth overview of the state of development in different world regions. A follow-up to the successful Hospice and Palliative Care in Africa: a review of developments and challenges (Wright and Clark, OUP 2006), this book provides a detailed evidence-base of the palliative care provision in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, identifies barriers to development and how these may be overcome. The book aims to stimulate a more informed debate around these issues, to improve policy-making among intergovernmental and governmental organisations on end of life care in these regions, and to encourage further research and improved practice. Hospice and Palliative Care in Southeast Asia: a review of developments and challenges in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines includes in-depth country reports that analyse the current state of hospice and palliative care. The book is written using a template that allows effective comparison between countries and regions. Data has been gathered from multiple sources, field visits, and interviews with key activists made possible by close working relations with hospice-palliative care colleagues across the region and in particular through links with the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN) and the national associations of each country. This book will be of relevance to anyone interested in international palliative care, including practitioners, researchers, policy-makers, social scientist, and medical historians.

Foreword by Dr Cynthia Goh. 1. Introduction. 2. Malaysia. 3. Thailand. 4. The Philippines. Appendices.

Michael Wright is a co-founder of Lancaster University's International Observatory on End of Life Care and remains associated with its activities as an honorary research fellow. During a varied professional life he has held the positions of parish priest, high school head teacher, hospital chaplain and senior research fellow. His interests lie in the areas of spirituality, hospice history, the global analysis of palliative care, and healing in the context of mortality. He currently combines his Observatory activities with independent consultancy, and priestly support in the Anglican dioceses of Sheffield, Wakefield and Europe. Ednin Hamzah trained as a physician and general practitioner in the North of England. In 1997 he was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer / Medical Director of Hospis Malaysia, the first full time clinical appointment in palliative care in Malaysia. Working in a clinical, educational and administrative environment, he has been involved in the areas of palliative care, pain and oncology throughout Malaysia and the region. Temsak Phungrassami is a radiation oncologist in the medical school at Prince of Songkla University, Thailand. During his professional life with cancer patients he became interested in palliative care. Based on his experiences in Australia the hospital-based palliative care system was established in his medical school hospital. He currently combines the modern palliative care system with Buddhist cultural wisdom to improve the care of these patients both locally and nationally in his country. Agnes Bausa-Claudio finished training in Family Medicine in 2001. In 2002 UP-PGH Family Medicine Department opened its Fellowship Training Program in Hospice & Palliative Care, the first in the country, in which she was one of the first of the two fellows trained. She visited Hospis Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and hospices in Singapore and United States. Before the end of 2002, she was one of the founders of Palliative Care Volunteer Gr