Congratulations
5th March 2024
Congratulations to the winner of the 2024 Cicely Saunders Award for a palliative care nurse in Czechia. This year’s prize has been awarded to Iva Valerová, a palliative care nurse who started the Charity Nursing Service in Nachod. She was the first nurse at the House of St Joseph in Zirc where she set up services providing care for patients with multiple sclerosis. She also worked in the surgical department of the University Hospital in Hradec Kralove and in 2010 was approached to establish the Anezka Ceska Mobile Hospice, part of the first ever hospice in Cerveny Kostelec.
Iva also works in the new established palliative team at the hospital in Nachod. She actively lectures about the role of nurses in palliative care and in her free time she is intensively involved in the organization and implementation of humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
The yearly Cicely Saunders Award is “for innovative and exemplary commitment” and was presented to Iva by the First Lady of Czechia, Eva Pavlova, at a palliative care conference in Prague last month.