Palliative care: Progress, needs, and challenges

Palliative care is increasingly available and the importance of its role increasingly recognized. International work toward making palliative care a basic human right underscores the growing need to ensure comfort and pain relief for the terminally ill. The organizational structures in place for providing such care vary greatly within and across countries; even definition of the term is not uniform. The World Health Organization (WHO) definition includes the statement that palliative care "... intends neither to hasten nor postpone death...", thus illustrating varying socio-cultural perceptions. In addition to cultural differences, other challenges include clinical, economic, and varying institutionalized systems and practices in patient care. This is a commentary on http://www.ijhpr.org/content/1/1/9/