A full day workshop, titled, ‘Seeking Meaning from Life in the Face of Death’, was held on October 11, 2008 to mark World Hospice & Palliative Care Day. It was organised in collaboration with the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Speakers representing different religious traditions, palliative care providers, and patients and their families participated in the workshop at the India International Centre. It was followed by a screening of Stefan Haupt’s film on the life and work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the legendary Swiss psychiatrist.

A souvenir based on this year’s theme, ‘Palliative Care is a Basic Human Right’, was released with a message from Aruna Sharma, Joint Secretary, National Human Rights Commission, who referred to palliative care as a person’s “inherent and inalienable right to life, which includes the right to die with dignity.”