Al Malath Foundation for Humanistic Care

This organisation was founded in 1993 by Rana Hammad, a specialist palliative care nurse. The Foundation is the only non-profit, voluntary NGO in Jordan offering a home care hospice service. The service provides for adults and children at the end of life who are resident in the capital city, Amman . Since its inception in 1993, the Foundation has developed a multi-professional home hospice team (Al Malath Hospice) including a physician, nurses, a pain specialist, social worker, rehabilitation therapist, and dietician. Volunteers and religious clergy support the team.²⁷ The home hospice team admits patients:

• who live within the ‘ Great Amman Municipality’;
• who have life threatening cancer or poor prognosis of life expectancy due to other illnesses;
• who personally, or their families, ask for palliation and understand the goals of palliative care (physicians or oncologists can refer or patients self refer);
• who are homebound but have up to one or two caregivers willing to support them.²⁸

Since the mid 1990s the Foundation has provided services for an average of 45 patients per year, of which between 3 – 10 % have been children and young people under 19 years of age. The home hospice team offers medical and nursing care, psychosocial and spiritual support to patients and their families. An important aspect of the Foundation’s ethos is to offer the option of continuous care and attendance, if requested by the family, in the patient’s last days or hours of life, including accompanying the patient into hospital in the event of the family asking that the patient be admitted.²⁹

King Hussein Cancer Centre

The King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC) was founded in 1997 as the Al-Amal Cancer Centre - renamed in 2002 in memory of the late King Hussein. The hospital is a non-governmental, not-for-profit, specialized cancer hospital treating adults and children. It has a capacity of 148 beds and currently treats more than 2300 new patients per year. KHCC is the only dedicated cancer centre in Jordan. It also attracts 25% of its patients from neighbouring countries in the Middle East. The Director, Dr Samir Khlief, is an oncologist and internationally recognised cancer researcher, who supports palliative care services and has facilitated the development of the KHCC hospice team.³⁰ The KHCC hospice team was established in October 2004, offering palliative care in hospital or at home to adult patients at the end of life, including medical, nursing, physiotherapy, nutritional, and psychosocial support.³¹ KHCC is working with WHO to develop a comprehensive palliative care training programme and establish a regional training centre within the hospital.³²

World Health Organisation (WHO)

The WHO is involved in supporting the development of palliative care services, in particular a review of opioid prescribing policies, and the promotion of education and training. In August 2003, a MOH/WHO workshop was attended by leading national policy makers and clinicians who agreed to establish a National Programme Initiative, ‘The Jordan Pain Relief and Palliative Care Initiative (JPRPCI)’. This is a World Health Organization (WHO) Demonstration Project for the Middle East Region. Negotiations with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and WHO have resulted in a public health approach being established, introducing the WHO foundation measures of education, drug availability and supporting policies.³³