Pioneer of Palliative Care and IASP Member Since 1998
IASP honors the life and work of Dr. Anne Merriman, MBE, FRCPI, FRCPEdin, MSc, who passed away on 18 May 2025 at the age of 90. A member of IASP since 1998, Dr. Merriman was internationally recognized for her pioneering contributions to palliative care in Africa and her unwavering commitment to equitable pain relief.
In 1993, Dr. Merriman founded Hospice Africa Uganda, where she introduced a community-based model of palliative care that has since reached more than 35,000 patients and trained over 10,000 healthcare professionals in 37 African countries. Her development of an affordable oral morphine solution—created in partnership with a pharmacist in Singapore—transformed access to pain management across the continent. Uganda became the first African nation to permit nurses and clinical officers to prescribe morphine and to formally integrate palliative care into its national health system.
Dr. Merriman’s career was shaped by a lifelong dedication to service, from her early years as a religious sister and physician in Nigeria to her later work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta and as a medical educator in Malaysia and Singapore. Her efforts reflected a vision of hospice care that extended beyond buildings to encompass the home, community, and whole person—addressing not only physical symptoms but also emotional, social, and spiritual needs.
She remained a strong and thoughtful advocate for the right to pain relief, often challenging institutional barriers to change. Her legacy continues through the clinicians she mentored and the patients whose suffering she helped to alleviate.
To learn more about Dr. Merriman’s life and contributions, read the full obituary in The Times.