Palliative care in Argentina: perspectives from a country in crisis

Argentina is a large South American country with a high prevalence of chronic disease-related mortality and a clear need for implementation of palliative care. Primary concerns related to palliative care are cultural, socio-economic and educational. Increasing poverty, patients and families receiving inadequate information about their diagnosis or prognosis, drug availability and costs, and insufficient knowledge by health care providers are obstacles to palliative care. Palliative care programs are developing throughout the country and methods by which they are meeting their needs are described. Several Argentinean palliative care initiatives are described and the role of the Pallium Latinomérica training program is discussed.