A palliative care initiative in Dokuz Eylul University Hospital.

Turkey is among the countries with only "capacity building activity"" in terms of palliative care development according to the mapping levels reported by the International Observatory on End of Life Care (http://www.eolc-observatory.net/global/pdf/world_map.pdf). Palliative care units are lacking even in major hospitals. Although some medical oncologists and pain specialists have been providing pain control and symptom relief to some extend, all these interventions remain a fragmented approach to care since there are no palliative care programs. Establishing palliative care services should be a priority in the development of comprehensive cancer care, particularly in a country where more than 60% of the cancer patients present with advanced stage disease. Like all the other university hospitals in the country, palliative care services have not been established so far in Dokuz Eylul University Hospital for several reasons although almost all the modern cancer treatment modalities have been provided to cancer patients. A group of health professionals have recently started a palliative care initiative in the hospital with an aim to raise awareness and to implement basic palliative care interventions to the current cancer care. This paper aims to tell the story of how this initiative get started and which step were taken so far.