ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that the origin of the clinical/pharmaceutical abyss in access to palliative care is an epistemic abyss, configured by vacuums of knowledge and practice and fueled by stigma. Palliative care’s multidisciplinary, holistic approach places a palliative on the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual suffering of patients and families. Palliative care advocacy calls on governments as duty bearers to deliver on their commitments to the right to palliative care by engaging in “multi-stakeholder” efforts of workforce training and health-system strengthening, among other things. The good news is that palliative care reconciles the physical and spiritual dimensions of persons, split in modernity at the expense of the spiritual. Palliative care educational evangelism, which is also a form of restorative justice, is evident in many of the countries where access to internationally controlled essential medicines remains inadequate or unavailable and palliative care virtually unknown.
