Georg Bollig
Palliative Care Team, Medical Department Sønderborg/Tønder, South Jutland Hospital, Sønderborg
Denmark
Last Aid International – Implementation of an international working group on Last Aid
Most people want to die at home. Therefore the public should have knowledge and skills in end-of-life care. Between 2014-2015 pilot courses have been given in Norway, Denmark and Germany that have shown the feasibility and acceptance of the course.
The concept has won prizes and has been invited to Chancellor Angela Merkel. (https://www.letztehilfe.info/?lang=en)
The main goals of the current project was to establish an international Last Aid working group and to reach consensus on the curriculum for an international Last Aid course.
European organisations such as e.g. palliative care organisations, health-services, the church were invited to enter the projects working group. Each participating country was allowed to send up to two delegates to the meetings of the working group. The Last Aid Course curriculum from the pilot phase was reviewed and adapted by the working group members from seven countries. Consensus on an international Last Aid Course curriculum has been reached. The international presentation is now finished and work with translation into different languages as well as education of Last Aid course instructors is ongoing. For the future the inclusion of more countries is planned. Meetings of the international Last Aid working group shall be held with regular intervals of 1-2 years. In Germany a first national symposium on Last Aid was held in 2017 and the second one takes place in October 2018.
The first international Last Aid conference is in the planning phase and will come up in 2019.
More information can be found on the homepage www.lastaid.info or by contacting Georg: georg.bollig@rsyd.dk