University honour for health work

Dr Merriman said terminally ill patients had no proper pain relief

A woman from Liverpool who has dedicated her life to treating terminally ill patients in Africa has been awarded an honorary doctorate.

Dr Anne Merriman set up the charity Hospice Africa, which works with cancer and HIV or Aids patients in sub-Saharan Africa.

She said initially only paracetamol was given for pain relief, but the charity now funded more effective treatments.

Dr Merriman was honoured at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk on Tuesday.

Speaking on receiving the award from the Lancashire university, Dr Merriman said: "It is a great privilege to be honoured with a doctorate from Edge Hill University, particularly so close to Liverpool where I was born."

Dr Merriman is responsible for the "Merriman Model" - a care programme devised during her work in the Nairobi Hospice in Kenya.

The hospice aims to provide affordable cancer care and treatment

There she witnessed the terrible suffering of terminally-ill cancer patients who had no access to proper oncology treatment or pain relief.

Using Uganda as a pilot, she rolled out the model to health services in several other African countries, creating an affordable and accessible cancer treatment that was made available on the continent during the 1990s.

"They won't have chemo or radiotherapy for another couple of generations because the money isn't there for that and they don't have enough money for drugs," she said.

"We would give them paracetamol and that was all.

"It's only now that we have pain relief and people can die in peace."