Postgraduate training course for Eastern-European professionals at the Budapest Hospice House

October 10 – 14, 2005

Thanks to the generous support of the IAHPC Travelling Scholarship Program I was one of several participants who managed to participate in the Postgraduate training course for Eastern European professionals in Hungary for five days.

Hungary is one of few Eastern European countries that successfully made many achievements in palliative care development. Using its almost 14-year wide experience and willingness to be helpful in promotion and development of hospice movement in other countries, attendance of the 1-week post graduate training course for Eastern-Europe palliative care professionals at the Budapest Hospice House was very useful and interesting.

In addition to myself, a doctor from Lviv, the Ukraine, also participated in the course. Moldova, the country where I live and the Ukraine are neighbours with similar obstacles in palliative care development. Our meeting in Hungary , our mutual discussions, sharing the common problems and ways to solve them in our existing conditions was an unexpected and doubly useful part of the course.

The first place we met and the main place of our educational activities in Hungary was the Budapest Hospice House. Its director, Katalin Muszbek, introduced us to the team and we got acquainted with the structure of the whole institution, visiting all its parts. Then Dr. Muszbek discussed with us such important topic as “state of art” in palliative care in Hungary, its current development and how the Hungarian experience can be helpful in palliative care development in Moldova and the Ukraine. Such topics as palliative care policy, strong opiates’ provision, palliative care organizations’ management and their financial support were permanent under discussion during the whole course.

Another important issue discussed with Katalin Muszbek was psychosocial support and communication with a person who has an incurable disease. This topic was brilliantly continued by the team of 2 psychologists, discussing how to break bad news and how to communicate with the whole family where the terminally ill patient is and with people of different age categories.

Meeting with a medical staff of the 10 bed inpatient ward of the Budapest Hospice House and our participation in the patients’ daily round and at their case discussions allowed us to share and to learn some clinical moments about the terminally ill patients’ management.

I was very impressed by the volunteers’ system organization, which made me sure how successfully their activities can be implemented almost in all fields of palliative care institution for the benefits of patients and caregivers.

Fundraising in palliative care was a separate topic for discussion with 2 excellent professionals. Hungarian experience and some practical advices in this domain were extremely useful, especially knowing conditions of many Eastern European countries, where palliative care service is not a part of the State Health Care System and its financing is one of the most difficult problems to solve.

Two days of the training were dedicated to visit of 2 other palliative care institutions, located out of Budapest .

One of them was situated in the south of Hungary , in the town of Pecs . It represented the inpatient department with 14 beds, organized and supported by the Saint John Order. Its experience of work, and such topics as hospice management, fundraising, psychological issues and clinical management were interesting to discuss, mentioning the differences or similarities seen earlier in the capital.

Another palliative care institution that we were delighted to visit was one of the pioneers of the Hungarian hospice movement – the Erzsebet (Elizabeth) Hospice. It is situated in the north-eastern part of Hungary – the town of Miskolc . Its great 10-year experience of work in many fields of palliative care such as: home care and inpatient departments, bereavement service, recognized educational centre for the country, and many others its leader, Dr. Csaba Simko, was very kind to share with us.

General impression of the training course was excellent, because it briefly covered almost all topics of palliative care, paying attention to very useful and essential details, allowing visiting and meeting different kinds of palliative care institutions throughout the country.

I’d like to express my personal gratitude to IAHPC for making this training possible, providing the financial support of my trip to Hungary and special thanks to all Hungarian friends, who made our stay in Hungary full of pleasant moments, sincere affection and giving the confidence that we are on the right track in our efforts’ realization towards the palliative care establishment in Eastern Europe region.

 

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Natalia Carafizi, MD,
Charity Foundation for Public Health “Angelus Moldova ”,
Hospice “Angelus”, Chisinau , Moldova
IAHPC Travelling Scholar to Hungary