Most palliative care professionals work on a part-time basis; some are paid, others receive no salary. Dr Gustavo de Simone points out:

'…there are yet not (governmental) funds allocated to the implementation of palliative care and this is a problem yet to be solved'¹³

Marta Junin describes the situation of staff nurses working in palliative care in public hospitals in Buenos Aires city:

‘situations we find in relation with nurses working in palliative care in our public hospitals in Buenos Aires are different…there some, very few…probably…five nurses…working full time in palliative care …and I am including the University hospitals’¹⁴

Volunteers’ role appears very relevant for providing care support. For instance, Dr. Roberto Wenk, consultant in palliative care, describes his experience as follows:

‘I am a defender of voluntary work…we have been training our volunteers for some time now on assessing symptoms and on the semi-structured evaluation of symptoms…this speeds up the consultation time enormously’¹⁵