Palliative Care in Moldova.

The article describes the important steps of palliative care development in Moldova, the current status, main achievements and challenges to be addressed in the future. It covers background information, policy development, medicines access and availability, education, and training, as well as services' provision. Palliative care development in Moldova registered real progress in spite of frequent political changes at governmental levels and difficulties to ensure the continuity of the development process during the last 10 years. However, the unmet need for palliative care for patients with life-limiting illnesses from different disease and age groups remains high. Further effort is needed to increase the availability and access to opioid analgesics and other essential palliative care medications. Government commitment and support, together with adequate funding, trained and educated health care professionals, and easy access to and availability of medicines, are essential to ensure the successful implementation of palliative care services nationwide, and to deliver the most appropriate qualitative palliative care for patients. To speed up palliative care development, a national strategy on palliative care development should be considered. The authors took part and continue to be involved in different ways in palliative care development in the country.