WFSA joins a WHA77 constituency statement highlighting the need to ensure access to essential medicines and continued medical education as a means to realise the General Programme of Work 2025-2028.
Chair, thank you for the draft GPW and the robust inclusion of palliative care, rehabilitation, and assistive technology as essential components of PHC and UHC.
We note the lack of an explicit reference to the availability of internationally controlled essential medicines needed for clinical use in palliative and non-palliative management of acute pain, anaesthesia, sedation, surgery, trauma care, obstetrics, treatment of mental health and substance use disorder.
These medicines are unavailable in more than 85% of the world. Adequate stockpiles and an uninterrupted safe supply of these medicines is essential for routine clinical care of neonates, children, adults, older persons, persons with disabilities and NCDs, and those caught in humanitarian disasters and war.
Our global membership organizations and WHO palliative care collaborating centres can provide workforce training in the safe use of controlled medicines including oral and parenteral morphine formulations.
Appropriate workforce training and safe supply chains discourage diversion and harmful non-medical use. Without these medicines people are living and dying in severe preventable suffering.
The undersigned recommend convening health cluster consultations to operationalize the high-level joint statements from INCB, UNODC, and WHO on the availability of controlled medicines in emergencies. Cluster consultations can also operationalise the recent Commission on Narcotic Drugs resolution on essential analgesics, which focused on children. Essential palliative care medicines must be included in WHO emergency and NCD care kits.
We emphasize that non-palliative management of chronic pain requires a multimodal approach, predominantly without opioids, including spiritual care, physical therapy, rehabilitation, and traditional medicine.
The constituency statement on Agenda item 17 -the adoption of the Global Programme of Work (GWP14) was delivered by IAHPC. Joining IAHPC were:
- International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care
- Handicap International Federation
- Help Age International (YES)
- IASP
- International Federation of Surgical Colleges
- The International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP)
- WFSA
- WHPCA
