Capacity building on new palliative care services.

Palliative care in cancer has always been an important issue in low and middle income countries. In many occasions most resources have been devoted to expensive treatments although palliative and supportive care approaches are very important. Turkey, as a country, has been trying to take the necessary steps to organise palliative care. The Cancer Control Department of Ministry of Health has started the National Cancer Control Program in 2008 and also prepared a Palliative Care Action Plan. Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey has also organised a multidisciplinary palliative care team to create the necessary future plans and will open the first academic program under the Department of Clinical Oncology.