Anne Merriman

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Dr. Anne Merriman
Born1935 (age 88–89)
Liverpool, England
Nationality Irish/British
EducationNational University of Ireland, UCD 1963
OccupationMedical/Philanthropist
Organization(s)Hospice Africa Uganda, Hospice Africa UK
Notable workFounder of Hospice Home Care in Singapore and Hospice Africa. Presently Director of Policy and International Programs, Hospice Africa Uganda

Anne Merriman, MBE, MCommH, FRCPI, FRCP (born 1935 in Liverpool, England) is a British doctor, known for her pioneering work and influential research into palliative care in developing countries in Africa. She has campaigned to make affordable oral morphine widely available.

Contents

In 1993, Dr. Merriman founded Hospice Africa Uganda. Under Anne Merriman's guidance, this introduced a model system of terminal care customized to developing countries with limited resources. From Hospice Africa Uganda (HAU) the Palliative Care Association of Uganda and was founded and Anne was the founding Vice President. On a continent-wide basis, she is a founder member of the African Palliative Care Association. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

Biography

Anne Merriman was born in 1935 in Liverpool, where she spent her childhood. She went to Ireland in 1953 and was enrolled in the UCD Medical School in 1957. [16] After qualification in 1963, she completed an internship in the International Missionary Training Hospital in Medicine in Drogheda. Over the first decade of her post-graduate career, she completed three two-year stints in three Medical Missionaries of Mary hospitals in southeast Nigeria. This was interspersed with posts in Drogheda, Dublin and Edinburgh, during which she successfully took her MRCPI and MRCP Edinburgh as well as diplomas in child health and tropical medicine. [11]

Since graduating as a medical doctor, Merriman has spent 33 years working in Africa (including 10 in Nigeria as a missionary doctor and 20 in Uganda), seven in Southeast Asia, eight in the United Kingdom, and five in Ireland. She introduced palliative care into Singapore in 1985, which became an accepted form of care with the founding of the Hospice Care Association in 1989, while Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine (COFM) in the National University of Singapore. This service is still fully functional in Southeast Asia. In 1990, Merriman returned to Africa, initially to Nairobi Hospice, before founding Hospice Africa. She introduced palliative care to Uganda in 1993, by forming an adaptable and affordable model, Hospice Africa Uganda (HAU). [4] [17] [18]

Early life

Born in Liverpool into an Irish Catholic family, she went to Ireland when she was 18 to join the Medical Missionaries of Mary. She grew up in war-time Merseyside, seeking protection from bombs in Air-raid shelters. After the war ended, when Anne was 12, her brother Bernard (11) fell ill. Within a fortnight, he was dead from a brain tumour. The family was devastated. As Anne entered her teens, she began considering a career in medicine. During this time a local cinema screened a film about the Medical Missionaries of Mary and the work of its Irish head, Mother Mary Martin, in Africa. This was a large influence on Anne and at 18, she joined the order in Drogheda.

After graduation, Merriman was sent to work at St Luke's Hospital, Anua, in south-eastern Nigeria. [8]

Published works

Audacity to Love is the chronicle of Merriman's work in bringing to life her vision of making affordable pain relief to dying patients throughout the poorest countries of Africa. In this book, Merriman writes of those with whom she has worked, as well as of patients, lessons learned and support received in setting up Hospice Africa. [19]

Current work

Presently, Merriman heads Hospice Africa's International Programs, supporting new initiatives in Tanzania, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zambia, Sudan and Rwanda, and more recently training, initiators from 11 Francophone countries to suit their different health service and needs.

Her introduction of affordable oral morphine suitable for use in the home, has revolutionised dying in Africa. Most wish to die at home and can now die in peace with their families and their God, close to their ancestors. However this has to spread to many countries and to be widely available to the millions still suffering terrible pain because this is still not available to them. Since 2004, the Ugandan Government has provided this medication free to any person who is prescribed it by a registered prescriber, a first in Africa today.

Honors

Accomplishments

Education

Related Research Articles

Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Within the published literature, many definitions of palliative care exist. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes palliative care as "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain, illnesses including other problems whether physical, psychosocial, and spiritual". In the past, palliative care was a disease specific approach, but today the WHO takes a broader patient-centered approach that suggests that the principles of palliative care should be applied as early as possible to any chronic and ultimately fatal illness. This shift was important because if a disease-oriented approach is followed, the needs and preferences of the patient are not fully met and aspects of care, such as pain, quality of life, and social support, as well as spiritual and emotional needs, fail to be addressed. Rather, a patient-centered model prioritizes relief of suffering and tailors care to increase the quality of life for terminally ill patients.

Terminal illness or end-stage disease is a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and is expected to result in the death of the patient. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as cancer, dementia or advanced heart disease than for injury. In popular use, it indicates a disease that will progress until death with near absolute certainty, regardless of treatment. A patient who has such an illness may be referred to as a terminal patient, terminally ill or simply as being terminal. There is no standardized life expectancy for a patient to be considered terminal, although it is generally months or less. Life expectancy for terminal patients is a rough estimate given by the physician based on previous data and does not always reflect true longevity. An illness which is lifelong but not fatal is a chronic condition.

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References

  1. ↑ "A world of pain". CBS News. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  2. ↑ "Health | Help for Uganda's terminally ill". BBC News. 26 October 2002. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  3. ↑ "UK | England | Lancashire | University honour for health work". BBC News. 21 July 2009. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  4. 1 2 "WHO | Project description". Who.int. 4 December 2000. Archived from the original on 20 August 2003. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  5. 1 2 "Anne Merriman | Profiles | Edge Hill University". Edgehill.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 13 July 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  6. ↑ "WHO | Uganda Team". Who.int. 28 January 2012. Archived from the original on 13 July 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  7. ↑ "Award-winning short documentary 'Okuyamba' to screen at Hesburgh Center // News // Notre Dame News // University of Notre Dame". News.nd.edu. 19 March 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  8. 1 2 "'I feel as though I have been used by God for His work and I'm so happy about that'". Independent.ie. 24 March 2009. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  9. ↑ "Hospice Africa - Dr Anne Merriman". YouTube. 23 July 2009. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  10. ↑ "A 'model hospice' in Africa – Irish Medical Times". Imt.ie. 28 February 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  11. 1 2 "Hospice Africa Ireland: News & Events - Dr. Anne Merriman Biography". Hospiceafrica.ie. Archived from the original on 23 September 2010. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  12. ↑ "Usaid/Uganda | Hospice Africa Uganda". Uganda.usaid.gov. 1 January 2005. Archived from the original on 13 July 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  13. ↑ "African Palliative Care Association : Palliative Care : A Handbook" (PDF). Apps.who.int. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  14. 1 2 "50th St Andrew's Day Festival Symposium : Five decades of medical progress" (PDF). Rcpe.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  15. ↑ "Dr Catherine D'Souza - INCTR News". Inctr-news.wikidot.com. 7 March 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  16. ↑ "UCD Medicine Courses - myUCD - University College Dublin - Ireland". myUCD. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  17. ↑ "Singapore's advocate of palliative care : healthcare asia – medical and healthcare news in asia". 16 July 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  18. ↑ "Biography | Dr. Anne Merriman". Annemerriman.com. 23 July 2012. Archived from the original on 15 March 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  19. ↑ ""Audactiy to Love" by Dr Anne Merriman | Hospice Africa". Hospiceafrica.ie. 6 November 2007. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  20. ↑ Philip Bunker (24 July 2013). "Honorary Fellows of LJMU". Ljmu.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  21. ↑ "In Depth | New Year Honours | Diplomatic Service and overseas". BBC News. 31 December 2001. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  22. ↑ "UCD Alumni Awards". UCD School of Medicine. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  23. ↑ "IOELC Honorary Members". Lancs.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  24. ↑ "12. An Interview with Professor Anne Merriman". UCDsmj. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
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