Legal services can play a critical role in improving the quality of life for patients and families dealing with life-threatening illnesses. They address human rights violations that negatively affect their health and contribute to patients’ and families’ peace of mind and well-being by providing answers to urgent and often difficult questions. Integrated health and legal services allow for both holistic care and increase access to justice, taking the law out of the courtroom and private offices and into the community.
To this end, the Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa, in collaboration with the Open Society Foundations, has just released the second edition of Legal Aspects of Palliative Care Manual. This manual addresses the legal and human rights problems facing people with life-threatening illness. It now not only includes case studies, legal recommendations, and resources, but has been restructured as a training manual with step by step lessons for hospice and palliative care staff and legal practitioners.
To learn more about this resource and how it contributes to the access to justice for the palliative care patients and their families, please see http://www.soros.org/voices/