Introduction: Harmonising End of Life Care – A Global Public Health Issue

End of life care is a global problem. From Western societies where death has been medicalised to lack of availability of palliative care which has led to an increase in the demand for euthanasia, to developing countries where end of life is affected by lack of resources including hospitals, home care, water problems and poverty. End of Life (EoL) care is a field in which, notwithstanding moral agreement on most issues, continues globally to be a source of controversy and uncertainty. This chapter looks at end of life as a global public health issues as described by the World Health Organisation. As an introduction to the texts, it puts end of life in perspective of global concerns and reviews the chapters in the book which have the aim of together attempting to provide a model for end of life care which can effectively be implemented globally, giving perspectives from learned experiences, systems, cultures, professional issues, medico-legal proposals, and pathways to implement change. A summary of these is given as an introduction to the reader.