Inter-American System as a Tool for Ensuring Access to Pain Relief and Palliative Care

Through the financial support from the Open Society Foundations, Dejusticia developed a diagnostic research from eight countries, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama and Uruguay, regarding the access to palliative care, the institutional development and the guidelines, and the existing barriers of access to opioid medications - used for pain relief. This document is aimed at medical personnel, civil society organizations, policy makers, and any one interested in addressing the issue of palliative care from a human rights perspective. Although for years palliative care was confined to a strictly medical analysis, in recent times the international community and United Nations bodies have recognized palliative care as a human rights issue. This document seeks to demonstrate the many linkages between palliative care and human rights in terms of both the conception and the protection of palliative care. We hope this report serves as a useful tool for the medical community, patients, and patients' fam ilies throughout the American continent who seek legal and human rights arguments to facilitate access to more humane end-of-life care, as well as for litigants and human rights activists who wish to protect and guarantee a life without pain for patients, including during their last days of life.