APCP asks the Government to signal priority for palliative care

A Portuguese Palliative Care Association (APCP) today called on the Government to give a signal that palliatives are priority by appointing the national committee for this area, which has been unappointed for 19 months.

“We haven’t had a National Commission on Palliative Care for 19 months,” Lusa Catarina Pazes, president of APCP, said, considering that this situation “has already crossed all limits.”.

The responsible explained that the care teams that are on the ground need guidance so that all Local Health Units (ULS) can define objectives “that are in line with the design of having a pediatric palliative care team and one of adults”.

“ This implies strategy, integration of care, joint work between these specialized teams and the other teams, but coordination is needed and strategy is needed,” he added.

Catarina Pazes said the teams feel abandoned and there seems to be a lack of interest on the part of guardianship, warning that palliative care makes all the difference for the sick and their families.

In a petition lodged at the end of September at the Assembly of the Republic – which brought together more than 9,500 signatures – APCP calls for the urgent need to strengthen palliative care in Portugal, recalling that more than 150,000 people live annually with suffering associated with severe, progressive and incurable disease.

Of these, between 70 and 85,000 people die every year in need of palliative care. “There are still thousands of children and young people with complex diseases who would benefit from this specialized monitoring,” he adds.

In the text of the petition, the subscribers argue that palliative care is not a luxury, but a fundamental right, centered on quality of life, relief of suffering and support for the person and his family in times of greater vulnerability.

They also draw attention to the lack of response in this area in Portugal, recalling the European recommendations that indicate that the country would need more than 100 community and in-hospital teams and about 1,000 specialized beds.

“The existing coverage represents only a fraction of this value, with strong territorial asymmetries and lack of adequate responses in various regions of the country,” they stress, adding that, in addition to the current numbers not reflecting the actual needs of the population, different responses are often confused, “which do not replace specialized palliative care beds in acute hospitals”.

In an increasingly aged country with increasing clinical and social complexity, APCP argues that this response cannot continue to be postponed and says that this postponement represents “a choice” with consequences for avoidable suffering, burdened families, unnecessary hospitalizations and “loss of dignity at the end of life”.

In the petition, the signatories ask the Government to expand community and in-hospital palliative care teams throughout the national territory and to strengthen the National Network of Palliative Care, with an increase of beds and specialized responses for adults and children, both in acute hospitals and in the National Network of Integrated Continuing Care.

They also want incentives and conditions for specialized professionals and the official recognition of palliative medicine as an autonomous medical specialty.

In February, APCP had already alerted to the conclusions of a report by the Health Regulatory Authority (ERS) on the National Network of Palliative Care (NPR) that indicated that more than half (53%) of the users referred to this care in the National Health Service in 2024 died waiting for vacancies, more than in the previous two years (47.5% in 2023 and 48% in 2022).