Àltima renews the collaboration agreement with the 'WeCare: End-of-Life Care' chair

Barcelona, July 12, 2019.- Àltima continues to support health research through the WeCare: End-of-Life Care Chair. The funeral company has renewed the agreement for the next three years with the chair, which was established seven years ago by the Faculty of Medicine at the International University of Catalonia (UIC Barcelona) in collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO).

WeCare: End-of-Life Care's main focus is the promotion of applied, interdisciplinary, and multidimensional research related to end-of-life care in the field of palliative care. This is an area of study where physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of both patients and their families emerge. Therefore, the chair works on four research lines encompassing patient care, the ethical, emotional, and spiritual framework—various factors influencing end-of-life decision-making and the desire to hasten death—the social and family context of the patient, and the field of clinical hemato-oncology. Since its inception, the WeCare Chair has paid special attention to the phenomenon of the Desire to Hasten Death (DHD), which some patients with advanced illnesses express, as well as the loss of Meaning in Life (MiL), aspects that it addresses from the perspective of those suffering and their closest environment.

Leading WeCare: End-of-Life Care are Dr. Josep Porta-Sales, head of the Palliative Care Service at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Girona, Dr. Cristina Monforte, director of Nursing at UIC Barcelona, and Dr. Albert Balaguer, dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at UIC Barcelona.