• The number of American adults aged 65 years and older is expected to double within the next 25 years.
• According to the World Health Organization, cancer rates are expected to surge 57% worldwide in the next 20 years. At some point, all of us will be affected by serious illness directly or through our loved ones, making the issue of suffering and care both timely and urgent.
• Our medical system is inept at providing healing care when cure is not possible. As a result, a growing number of doctors, organizations, and advocates for humanized medicine are sounding the alarm against the unnecessary suffering imposed on the seriously ill by a system that has completely lost sight of the art of care (see the popularity of books like those of Dr. Ira Byock, Dr. Atul Gawande, Dr. Robin Youngson, etc.)
• A majority of Americans die in the hospital or in nursing homes without the kind of care that would ease their suffering. At the same time, an estimated 60 million Americans struggle at home on their own trying to care for a seriously ill family member. Given a choice, most of us want to die peacefully and with dignity in our own home but without completely draining our loved ones.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA) estimate that 40 million people worldwide require palliation in the year leading up to their death. In 2014, these organizations started a petition for the inclusion of hospice and palliative care in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a fundamental human right.
