August 7, 2014

BACA participated in the Barbados Network Consultation 3rd Diaspora Conference held in Barbados in August 2014 at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

The forum was intended to sensitize stakeholders to the importance of hospice and palliative care as an integral part of elder care and to provide an update on progress towadrs the standalone hospice being promoted by BACA and the diaspora community.

A key component of the forum was the airing of a video on hospice and palliative care produced by BACA Member Jessica Odle-Baril, featuring the experiences of three Barbadian families including that of the late Prime Minister David Thompson. The video very emotive and can be viewed by clicking here.

BACA Chairman's Remarks
The following remarks were made by BACA Chairman Dr. O’Neall Parris:

"Chair, Honourable Dr. Donna Hunte-Cox, Consul General of Barbados at New York, Honourable Minister of Health John Joyce, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator the Hon. Maxine McClean, Distinguished presenters, representatives of the various ministries involved in making BNC 2014 the success it has been thus far, distinguished invitees:

It is my pleasure as chairman of the Barbados Cancer Association USA (BACA) to welcome you to this forum on Hospice and Palliative Care.  Let me at this juncture recognize the two persons who held this position previously and did much to set BACA on the path it has taken. I refer to Ava Foster and Jessica Odle-Baril.

Just a quick word about BACA for those not familiar with our work. We are a non-political, New York-based non profit, US federal tax exempt cancer advocacy organization predominantly of Barbadians residing in the greater New York area. We will be 10 years old next year and our cancer support activities have been, and are, heavily weighted towards Barbados and to a much lesser extent, the New York City immigrant community.

We are proud to have provided support for the Barbados public health sector, particularly by way of donations to the QEH of diagnostic and treatment equipment used in cancer services; and to the NGO sector in Barbados. Our current initiative is to marshall the US diaspora as well as the Canadian and UK diasporas to assist in the establishment of a standalone hospice and palliative care facility, or should I say, palliative care/hospice facility, to augment current palliative care efforts. 

During the course of the forum you will hear how these terms palliative care and hospice are defined, and be given background information and a rationale for such an entity by Dr. Natalie Greaves, public health consultant, who did an elder care needs assessment for the Ministry of Health some two years ago. A project such as this has to be carefully thought out and needs to engage all stakeholders – government, NGOs, the private sector and the Barbadian community. It cannot be imposed from the outside. To try to do so would deem it to failure and quite frankly, Barbadians would not stand for it.  

So BACA comes with a spirit of cooperation and has been talking with the Ministries of Health and Foreign Affairs and other stakeholders for the past two years. The current status of this diaspora initiative is that the legal aspects have essentially been completed.  A US diaspora fundraising arm, the Barbados Diaspora Collaborative (BDC USA), has been established as a nonprofit entity in New York and the Barbados Association for Cancer Advocacy (BACA Barbados) has been established as registered Charity No. 875 in Barbados to support the effort on this end. Today I proudly announce the launch of BACA Barbados. With these pieces in place, fundraising can now begin in earnest and overtures are being made in various quarters. 

A 20-bed facility seems appropriate based on Dr. Greaves’s research and the timeline calls for services to start in 2016, but there is much to be done including further discussion with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders if we are to reach this goal.  

We actually first presented this project at the BNC 2012.  One query I received from the head of one of the NGOs was, “what’s new?” What’s new is that we have further engaged stakeholders, attended to legal matters, developed an emotive video on this topic featuring the experiences of Barbadians who have lost loved ones and have started to look at Barbadians’ knowledge and attitude towards hospice and palliative care in a commisioned study by ES Caribbean Health Systems - Barbados.  

Expectations are that at the end of this session, attendees will have a firm grasp of palliative care and hospice concepts and be sensitized to issues relating thereto. We look forward to working with all interested parties to make this necessary initiative a success.

O'Neall E. Parris, MD, MPH, FAAP
BACA Chairman
[email protected]

August 7, 2014

The forum can be viewed in its entirety here.