Expanding Horizons

The Schober foundation, based in Münster, has donated 12,150 euros to help fund hospice and palliative care in Ukraine over a 12-month period. Prof. Dr Dr Otmar Schober was pleased to present the foundation’s donation to Dr Andreas Stähli, Academy Director at the Johannes hospice. Prof. Schober explained: “As a foundation established to promote Christian hospice work, it is...
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In August, I had the special opportunity to visit Moldavia for five days. Maria Herzog, palliative care professional from Dortmund and coordinator for the hospice “Gloria” in Ceadir Lunga, accompanied me and gave me the occasion to get to know the hospices and their executives in this country. Establishing partnerships with East European hospices is one great aim of academy work at...
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My several months’ journey through many countries of East Europe and Central Asia within a research project in Palliative Care aroused my vivid interest in the situation of these countries. I made the painful experience that I was only able to communicate in English. But good knowledge of English cannot be taken for granted in these regions, particularly not with the nursing professions....
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Many of the projected activities included in the cooperation between the two hospices in Iwano-Frankiwsk and Münster and supported by the Foreign Office had to be canceled owing to the pandemic. The most ambitious project, however, could successfully be completed: the making and publication of a textbook of palliative care for nurses in Ukrainian. In fragile times like these with all their...
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The notion ‘hospice’ contains a humanitarian assignment and is attached neither to a special culture nor to a special region. During my nine months’ journey around the world in 2013 and 2014 I wanted to learn more about how the idea of hospice is realized outside the borders of Europe. So, among other things, my route led me to India. In November 2013 I visited Rishikesh, a town...
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It was a special pleasure and honor for me to receive an invitation to give a talk at the 3rd National Hospice and Palliative Congress in Kiev, which had to be held online this year. I used the opportunity to report on the so much enriching cooperation between the hospice in Iwano-Frankiwsk and Johannes-Hospiz. The by now three years’ cooperation of our two institutions bore many fruits,...
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An important part of the projects in 2020 between the hospice in Ivano-Frankvisk and Johannes-Hospice, sponsored by the Foreign Office, is the making of a textbook on palliative care for nurses in Ukrainian language. For this reason, a project group was formed, which consists, beside the director of the project Andreas Stähli, of the two head nurses and the two directing physicians of the...
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Between April and September 2018, the Head of Academy embarked on a research expedition in the WHO regions of Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The data gathered as part of the research in the form of questionnaires and interviews was analysed from a quantitative and qualitative perspective. The quantitative part will soon be published in Palliative Medicine in Practice, with...
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The cooperation between Johannes Hospiz and the Regional Palliative Care Center in Ivano-Frankivsk (West Ukraine) has been magnificently deepened in 2019. This intensification has been made possible by the financial support of the Foreign Office. Within the scope of the project target “Capacity building in hospice care”, the following measures among other things were carried...
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More than 3.000 participants from more than 100 countries, among them 500 participants from Germany, had come to the international congress in Berlin from Mai 23rd to 25th. The program, presented in a brochure of more than 200 pages, covered an ambitious spectrum of subjects and was titled “Global Palliative Care – Shaping the Future”. The many issues ranging from care, research...
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As reported in the December edition of the Newsletter, the director of the Academy is for the time being member of a project group at Paracelsus University Salzburg developing a core curriculum in Palliative Care on behalf of WHO-Europe. Special emphasis is laid on the regions of Central Asia and East and Southeast Europe. The six month field study of 2018 collected quantitative and qualitative...
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The director of the Academy is for the time being member of a project group at Paracelsus University Salzburg with the task of developing a core curriculum in Palliative Care which is supposed to serve as a recommendation for the countries of this region. Target group are doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and people with a pastoral assignment. My field research consisted of a...
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