Georg Bollig, Marius Ciurlionis and Boris Knopf

Two EUPCA students and one alumnus are running an amazing project: 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 main goals of the current project were 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 palliative care organisations, health-services, the church were invited to enter the project 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, the second national symposium on Last Aid took place in October 2018.

The concept has won prizes and has been invited to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Assoc. Professor Dr. med. Georg Bollig, founder of the Last Aid Courses and leader of the international Last Aid working group: “The participation in the EUPCA course has lead to a progress of the the Last Aid project and has been a great help to distribute Last Aid Courses to other European countries.“

We are very happy to hear about the great development of the project as well as the cooperation between EUPCA participants and alumni!