ABSTRACT
Getxo Zurekin is conceived as a social awareness, training and research programme with the aim of transferring the importance of end-of-life care to the community. The project is intended to promote a new social movement in Getxo for the creation of a compassionate environment for people at the end of their lives through the involvement and participation of the community. Rather than replacing existing palliative services and health and social care, the aim is to contribute to the well-being and improvement of the quality of life of people in dependency and end-of-life situations, capitalizing on existing community strengths and networks.
This initiative, launched in 2017, also had the aim of gaining an in-depth understanding of the challenges related to advanced illness, end-of-life and the bereavement process, as well as the existing capacities, resources and opportunities for the design and implementation of innovative and well-being, generating actions from a community perspective. Throughout this process of listening, network management and collective interpretation, focused on carers, care workers and their immediate environment (from care home staff to the public sector, including pharmacists, undertakers, cemetery workers and hairdressers for cancer patients), the programme was able to determine a series of challenges and opportunities that can serve as a basis for work on compassionate environments.
Getxo Zurekin Basque Region Spain was endorsed as a compassionate community by Public Health Palliative Care International in October 2025.
