Dr Mary Bunn, Palliative Care Doctor, Sierra Leone; Trustee of Hospice Africa UK. For services to the Development of Palliative Care in Sierra Leone

Mary worked as a General Practitioner in the UK until 2005 when she went to run a children’s palliative care unit in Blantyre, Malawi. She achieved an MPhil in Palliative Medicine from the University of Cape Town in 2009, conducting research into barriers to communication which informed a booklet for healthcare professionals entitled ‘No secrets; helping families and carers talk to children about life-limiting illness’. She returned to UK to work as a specialist palliative care doctor at Queenscourt Hospice in Southport for 9 years, obtaining a PGCE in teaching and learning in clinical practice from Edge Hill University and joining the faculty there as a lecturer for a new module on transforming integrated palliative and end of life care.  

The opportunity to develop a palliative care service in Sierra Leone arose in 2017. She spent a year working at a small private hospice before moving to the government teaching hospitals complex in Freetown, recognising the need for a nationwide, integrated service in the government sector. She applied experience and lessons learnt from Malawi, UK and Hospice Africa Uganda to advocate, teach and train, and set up a clinical unit at Connaught Hospital. She also worked with the pharmacy board to bring the Hospice Africa Uganda method of making affordable oral morphine solution available for patients in Sierra Leone. She gained a Fellowship in Palliative Care from the Palliative Care Institute, India, and St Christopher’s Hospice, UK, in 2021 and has served as a trustee for Hospice Africa since 2014.