It is with great pleasure that the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) introduces two more Trustees who have recently joined the ICPCN board. We have written a series of articles in the last few weeks to appreciate the new additions to the International Board of Trustees. Please find the previous article here.
We are happy to have found stellar individuals to volunteer their time and energy to directly impact the community and organisation. Their great skills coupled with their experience are quite impressive. In this article below, we would like to introduce you to Dr Gayatri Palat and Dr Tan Ru Wei.
Dr Gayatri Palat
Gayatri is a Physician and Consultant Associate Professor for Pain and Palliative Medicine at the MNJ Institute of Oncology & RCC in Hyderabad, India, where she played a key role in establishing the Department of Palliative Care. She is also the Director of the Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration Palliative Care programme (Canada). In her many years of working in children’s palliative care, she has gained wide experience in advocacy and the implementation of children’s palliative care programmes to relieve Serious Health-related Suffering (SHS).
She has been the leader of a strong and growing CPC programme in Hyderabad, which has led to collaboration with the global outreach of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in the UK. She is also an advisor to the Indian Government on policy, training, and capacity building for the national CPC programme.
Dr Palat also played a key role in developing the not-for-profit organisation called “Pain Relief and Palliative Care Society (PRPCS”) in Hyderabad, which provides community home-based hospice care called ‘Life at your doorstep’.
ICPCN has had a long working relationship with Dr Palat, and welcomes her passion, knowledge and expertise to the Board of Trustees.
Dr. Tan Ru Wei.
Dr. Tan Ru Wei lives in Selangor, Malaysia, and works at the Columbia Asia Hospital (Klang) as the resident Consultant Paeditrician.
He is also currently a member of the hospital’s Drug and Therapeutic Committee where he is in a position to provide input without prejudice, especially regarding the approval required for the introduction of new drugs into the hospital’s formulary. At present, he is leading a quality improvement project in the hospital for “Pain Management for children undergoing needle procedures”.
In 2018, he was part of a special taskforce set up by the Malaysian Ministry of Health to promote and develop paediatric palliative care (PPC) in the country, and in 2021 the first Malaysian PPC handbook was published to help clinicians manage children with PPC needs. He is passionate and committed to advocating for PPC and is looking forward to serving as a Trustee on the board of a global organisation
Comment from Dr Tan: “It is an absolute honour to serve as a trustee in an organization that is globally influential to advocate and provide PPC service. I hope that my experience as a clinician, a bioethicist, and as a leader can be put to good use in the mission of ICPCN for better palliative care service to the children and families in need, regardless of where they are.”
Please find the first article introducing our new board members here.