Harmonisation and Dissemination of Best Practice – Educating and alleviating the concerns of Health Care Professionals on the proper practice of End of Life care Erasmus Project

Project Title

Harmonisation and Dissemination of Best Practice – Educating and alleviating the concerns of Health Care Professionals on the proper practice of End of Life care

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Ethics, religion and philosophy (incl. Inter-religious dialogue); Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

The proposed project will bring together leading academic institutions and researchers, including scholars from the Pontifical Academy for Life, UNESCO, EthiMed (the network of Mediterranean Bioethicists), the Fondazione San Raffaele and the Catholic University of Leuven as well as leading practitioners in the field from Malta, the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, France, Belgium and Holland. It will be addressing the critical issue of end of life treatment and, whilst repudiating euthanasia in all its forms, will examine the short comings of health care professionals, who at one extreme may be recommending extraordinary measures of nutrition, hydration and advanced life support systems at the very end of life and not accepting death as the inevitable outcome, and at the other extreme not even giving sufficient pain relief for those who need it for fear of hastening the patient’s demise. There are morally acceptable guidelines, put forward by religious institutions including the Catholic Church, which can make the end of life more comfortable and which, indeed, can have a significant and disproportionate impact on the reduction of economic costs, although the latter is certainly not the main aim of the project.

It is proposed that a curriculum framework and a complementary care protocol incorporating identified best practice from diverse jurisdictions throughout the European Union be developed and implemented in the fullest respect for ethical, moral, medical and socio-political considerations. A significant amount of analysis and research, networking, teaching and evaluation activities will be required to complement the research project as a whole. Due to the complexity of the relevant academic, medical, moral, ethical, legal and social issues involved, across the European Community, the project will definitely require as well close and continuous management of the deliverables in order to achieve the desired level of intellectual output. The project will also seek to identify effective training and political pathways for translating project outcomes into practice throughout the European Community.

The summer school were received very well and one study carried out was published in the Journal of the Malta College of Family Doctors. There were requests for future summer schools both in Malta, where one has already been implemented (not funded) and also in L’Aquila where the two universities are searching means of funding.

A Consensus Document was drawn but by the Bioethics Research Programme of the Faculty of Medicine in collaborations with the faculty of Laws and the Faculty of Theology. This described a protocol for end of life care taking into consideration the legal and moral dimensions. It was received well by the CEO of Mater Dei Hospital and a Hospital Ethics Committee is to be set up following this project. Also the Minister of Health took a keen interest and Prof. Mallia went to the Ministry to give a talk on the Project, in which the Minister promised to have th law reviewed in order to cover all that was proposed.

A curriculum of the Summer School was compiled by Prof. Mallia and reviewed by the project team. This curriculum is international and aimed to help individual within an institution or ministry tackle specific problems in end of life. It includes pathways for implementation

Pathways were also a concern for developing or improving end of Life care and to provide training for both primary and secondary care; another pathway described the implementation and description of Advanced Care Planning.

A curriculum for CPD of Magistrates was also made for the Malta context. Prof Mallia and the Dean of Laws are already involved in this CPD programme and end of life is considered important in view of any legal cases which arise due to the moral dimension not specified in the law.

Position papers were published in renown journals. This is in the funal report submittted. Moreover the project has two books accepted by SPRINGER, one of which is in the GLOBAL ETHICS SERIES. The deadline for invited authors are the end of this year for one and MArch 2019 for the other.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 417917,64 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA TA MALTA & Country: MT

Project Partners

• DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DELL’AQUILA