Palliative Nursing Education in Romania

Palliative care services became known and developed slowly in Romania after the fall of communism, in the winter of 1989. Hospice Casa Speranţei, the pioneering organization set up in 1992 with the mission to introduce and develop palliative care in Romania, has played a considerable role in the development of palliative care services in our country. Very soon in our work, we realized that proper palliative services must be based on adequate, standardized, and up-to-date education of professionals involved in offering such services, starting from the physician, to the nurse and social worker involved. Nurses who work for Hospice Casa Speranţei are autonomous professionals with clear roles and essential responsibilities within the interdisciplinary team. In 2011, nine palliative nursing trainers from Romania, five of them from Hospice Casa Speranţei Brasov, participated in the special 5-day End-of-Life Nursing Education Curriculum (ELNEC) Train-the-Trainer seminar held in Salzburg, Austria. The Romanian ELNEC journey began there, and the following is our story.