Robin Love, MD’86

Partners in Compassion: Global Health in Nepal

Robin Love, MD'86

Robin Love, MD’86

Partners in Compassion has a simple but impactful mission—to enhance compassionate care and comfort to the dying and their families. The hospice palliative care communities of Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada and Bhaktapur, Nepal have come together in friendship to share resources and learn from each other’s experiences and cultures.

A twinning partnership—  a professional and social collaboration between organizations in different countries to achieve mutual benefits through combined efforts and a common vision —was initiated between the Nanaimo Palliative Care program and Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital in 2005. Each year a multi-disciplinary team, led by Robin Love, MD’86, travels to Nepal to provide support and training to its developing centre of excellence in palliative care.

The majority of the teaching is done at the bedside. Lectures to the larger hospital staff have also been held; in addition a formal two-week-long palliative care course was attended by 47 participants from other areas outside of the Bhaktapur twinning community. This group returned to their home communities with enhanced knowledge and techniques in palliative care.

Dr. Love’s wife, Deirdre, along with Susan Breiddal partnered with Health Canada to develop a twinning manual entitled ‘Canada’s Guide to Hospice Twinning’.  Rather than expand the twinning partnership they developed, Love hopes to empower others to start their own twinning projects.

This hope is starting to be realized.  Dr. Fraser Black and the Victoria Hospice developed a partnership in the Southern region of Nepal and Crossroads Hospice in Coquitlam formed a partnership in Accra, Ghana.

For more information about Partners in Compassion or setting up your own twinning project, please visit: partnersincompassion.com

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