The Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN) is the regional umbrella body dedicated to promoting hospice and palliative care in Asia and the Pacific.

Our purpose is to empower and support organisations and individuals committed to alleviating suffering from life-threatening illness.

We promote education and skills development, enhance awareness and communication, and foster research and collaboration. We encourage established programmes to assist less experienced and more isolated colleagues.

Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.

Particularly in developing countries where 80% of cancers are diagnosed late in the course of the disease when cure is unlikely, the WHO advocated that countries allocate resources for the provision of palliative care.

With its emphasis on pain relief and symptom control, as well as psychosocial support for the patient and family, palliative care plays a vital role in the relief of suffering in patients with advanced diseases, such as end-stage heart, lung, kidney and liver failure, as well as advanced cancer.