African Palliative Care Association

The African Palliative Care Association (APCA) is a pan-African organization started in 2003 and whose secretariat is in Kampala Uganda. The main goal of the organization is to reduce suffering and pain for people living with life-limiting illnesses (both communicable and non-communicable) in Africa. This discipline is formally called palliative care and defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as: ‘an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual. The goal of APCA is achieved through four main objectives namely; i. Increasing knowledge and awareness about palliative care at the level of policy makers, multidisciplinary health worker teams, and the general population; ii. strengthening health systems by integration of palliative care, utilizing the WHO building blocks of leadership/governance, service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines and financing; iii. creation of research evidence for palliative care in Africa and; iv. ensuring its sustainability;