Setting Higher Standards in Cancer Care: Experiences at the First Palliative Moroccan Care Congress Casablanca, Morocco, March 2022.
Since the implementation of the first National Cancer Prevention and Control Plan in 2010, palliative care in Morocco has been a strategic approach in its own right, alongside the prevention, early detection and cancer management approaches.
Since then, several measures have been put in place to facilitate the deployment of the actions representing this axis, i.e. the development of the palliative care network, pain management, palliative care research, as well as social and family support for palliative cancer patients.
Palliative care units have been established in seven regional oncology centers, four of which have mobile home teams,
in addition to outpatient and inpatient activities. Palliative care activity is,
therefore, centralised at the tertiary level of care, ensuring care for advanced palliative cancer
patients only in urban areas, through home visits, outpatient or inpatient care.
However, they are inaccessible to patients living in peri-urban or rural areas, unless they can physically travel to the regional
oncology centre where specialised palliative care teams operate. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most patients in advanced or terminal palliative situations.
It is in this context of inaccessibility to palliative care that the palliative care strategic axis of the second National Cancer Prevention and Control Plan was designed, emphasising the community approach to palliative care, the proposal of regulatory texts in line with the principles of bioethics, as well as the reinforcement of the training of health professionals in palliative care to achieve full coverage of patients in need of palliative care.
Palliat Med Hosp Care Open J. 2022; 8(1): e1-e2. doi: 10.17140/PMHCOJ-8-e011