Hospice & Palliative Care Council of Vermont Creates Partnership with Tanzania

HPCCV is celebrating the beginning of an ambitious effort to directly address the health and HIV crises in Africa by forming a partnership with a rural palliative care program in Iambi, Tanzania through the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa (FHSSA).

“Though we are a small state with a small budget, Vermont hospices have big hearts, and we are donating 10% of our annual budget to help this program in Tanzania. We complain about the cost of gasoline and the impact on home visits, but in Iambi they are doing home visits on foot, bicycling for hours, and using the weekly bus to take them to distant villages,” said HPCCV Director, Virginia Fry.

Funds have been raised through a Silent Auction and donation jar at the recent Annual Conference at Lake Morey in Fairlee, Vermont, and the sale of garden bulbs. Future efforts may include a Winter Ball featuring African dance music, and a trip to Tanzania in February by Middlebury hospice worker and project spearhead, David White, of Hospice Volunteer Services, to extend personal contacts and assess ways we can help.

“The donation of a few thousand dollars can support the work of a nurse for a year, or medicine for an entire village-- and no gift is too small to make a big impact,” says David White and National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization President and CEO, Don Schumacher. NHPCO co-sponsors the African effort, which has extended to over 60 programs in 10 countries since 1999. If you wish to help, you can send a check made out to FSSHA and mail it to HPCCV at 10 Main St., Montpelier, VT 05602. You can also go on the http://www.NHPCO.org website and explore the linked FSHHA information.

Hospice workers at the Annual Conference of the Hospice and Palliative Care Council of Vermont heard David White, who works for HPCCV Member-- Hospice Volunteer Services, describe his trip to Tanzania and saw photos of those we partner with in Iambi.

David says, "Our Vermont partnership is helping provide both clinical and collegial support as well as urgently needed financial support to the Iambi Hospital’s hospice and palliative care programs. Hospice care is a relatively new concept in Africa, and fledgling programs there struggle against great obstacles. At the Iambi Hospital, a hospice staff of 8 along with 100 trained volunteers serves 11 remote communities with a combined population of over 150,000 people.

The partnership has been carefully pre-screened and arranged through the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa (FHSSA), based in Alexandria, Virginia. Over the past few years FHSSA has coordinated the U.S. hospice movement’s response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and broader palliative care needs in Africa.