In early 2024 Krebsallianz began funding a new project in collaboration with the partners, Ukraine Medical Consortium and the Institute for Emergency Medicine. The Ukrainian health care system has been put under growing pressure since the war broke out in 2022. A health system that was already lacking in palliative care training for medical professionals, is now faced with the immense impact of war. According to the guidelines set out by the European Association of Palliative care, only a third of palliative patients in Ukraine receive adequate care. Over the past decade, the ministry of health has been able to build new inpatient care facilities, improve home care and outpatient services as well as change laws that support better patient access to opioids. These changes are a much needed improvement, but there is a long way to go before palliative patients receive adequate care and pain treatment.

To support the continued improvement of palliative care in Ukraine the UMC has teamed up with the European Certificate in Essential Palliative Care (ECEPC) to offer a nine-week online training course. The project addresses a lack of palliative care knowledge in nurses and doctors across the country. Currently there is no other online training for medical professionals across the board, other than one exclusive to doctors.

UMC has coordinated a medical translation of the ECEPC course into Ukrainian, which will be approved by the Ministry of Health. To facilitate the course and its content, a number of Ukrainian nurses and doctors will be first trained by Northwell Health and the Dana Faber Institute in the US. They will then go on to give the nine-week online course to cohorts from across Ukraine. The UMC has worked tirelessly to get this course recognized by the Ukrainian Ministry of Health who have agreed to certify the completion of the course for each medical professional.

The trainers have shared some of their feedback about their training so far, and we look forward to continuing to support palliative care efforts in Ukraine. 

Oksana Krasii?
"Good afternoon! Thank you for organizing the course on palliative care. I found a lot of valuable materials and interesting information that I will be able to implement in my medical practice! Also, the call with colleagues was extremely valuable. It was a pleasure to communicate, share experiences, and learn more about how palliative care is organized. Thank you for the wonderful experience and new knowledge."

Anatolii Tsarenko
"I passed the supervision. It was extremely interesting and useful to communicate with Pavlo! Thank you for this opportunity."

Zoia Maksymova
"Thank you so much! I was very fortunate to take the course and meet Paul, who generously gave me a lot of his time."

Vira Chaikovska?
"I would like to thank all the organizers and medical supervisors for a very useful, professional, and interesting course. I look forward to continuing to cooperate with you."