The UIC and Áltima, a funeral services company with over 300 years' experience, will launch the new We Care Chair: End-of-Life Care, which will make up part of the UIC Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. The new chair, directed by Dr. Cristina Monforte, the UIC Director of Nursing, and Dr. Josep Porta, a professor of Medicine at the UIC and the Head of Palliative Care at the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), will promote applied interdisciplinary and multidimensional research related to end-of-life, palliative care.  

The objective of the new chair We Care is to create a better understanding of the needs and care of patients with advanced disease at the end of their lives and their families in order to prevent and treat patient problems. "End-of-life care is a very sensitive field in which physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs emerge for patients as well as their families", said Dr. Cristina Monforte. That is why she emphasized the importance of the chair, whose aim is to disseminate knowledge and raise awareness about the needs of end-of-life care.

"The creation of the We Care university chair is the best way to support the generation and transfer of knowledge to society in order to improve the care patients receive in their last stage of life. At Áltima, we know that personalized care tailored to patients who are living close to death is key to beginning a healthy grieving process", said Josep Ventura, the Managing Director of Áltima.

RESEARCH LINES AND ACTIVITIES

Among the chair's lines of research, four stand out: patient care (such as prevention, early detection and treatment of problems related to direct patient care), ethics (which will address decision making at the end of life and factors that influence ethical and spiritual issues), social implications (such as the socio-cultural impact that governs decision-making in families, living with loss caused by death and mourning), and clinical hemato-oncology (which will focus specifically on studying the physical and psychosocial aspects related to patients with haematological malignancies).

The chair will organize studies, informative events and conferences with the participation of Spanish and international researchers. "The chair ultimately hopes to help patients with advanced-stage disease who will benefit from the knowledge contributed by our lines of research", said Dr. Josep Porta. "The families and care givers of these patients will also benefit, as will professionals in the health sciences field, who will receive professional training on how to care for them, and young researchers, who will be able to carry out their projects and doctoral theses".

In October, the First International Conference on "The Desire to Speed Up Death in Patients with Advanced-Stage Disease” is due to take place.

UIC Rector Dr. Pere Alavedra; Jordi Viñas, the CEO of Áltima; and Josep Ventura, the Managing Director of Áltima, were present at the signing of the agreement.

Áltima, formally known as Serveis Funeraris Integrals (SFI), is the leading Catalan funeral services company specializing in funerals, crematoriums and cemeteries. With over 300 years' experience in funeral services and a human resource team of 295 professionals, Áltima is the result of the merger of three family-run companies (Ventura, Fenés and Viñas). The group manages the Ronda de Dalt Funeral Home in Barcelona, as well as the Gran Vía Funeral Home in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and the funeral services in Sant Boi-Baix Llobregat. The group also has funeral homes throughout Catalonia, including in Vilafranca del Penedès, Sitges and Vilanova i la Geltrú. Áltima also manages the regional cemetery Parc de Roques Blanques, located in the municipality of Papiol in the province of Barcelona.