Founder and CEO, Cultura Paliativa. Co-ordinator, Grief in Schools Project (IPA Foundation).
Alejandro Nespral is a Pediatrician who has lived in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina since 2010. He specializes in palliative care for children and adults. He is the founder of the Palliative Care Team Service at the Bariloche Zonal Hospital since its inauguration in 2013, becoming the first public and private palliative care service in the region. He served as its head from its inception until November 2022. In 2015, together with a group of colleagues, he founded the Ideas Paliativas en Acción Foundation, an NGO dedicated to the promotion, dissemination, assistance, and education in the field of palliative care. One of the Foundation’s most notable projects is the play “Don’t Stop Talking to Me”, presented in 2017 and 2018 in both Argentina and Uruguay. In 2021, the Audio-visual Project Perspectives was launched.
Alejandro is the General Coordinator of the “Grief in Schools” Project (IPA Foundation), which since 2015 has provided training and reflection workshops for teachers and students on the topic of death and grief in education. This project also provides assistance, advice, and support to grieving educational institutions. Since its inception, more than 120 schools and social and community institutions in Bariloche, the rest of Argentina, and Uruguay have been supported. The project has been declared of cultural, social, and educational interest by the Municipality of Bariloche and the Ministry of Education of the Province of Río Negro.
The Grief in Schools Project also has a research team that has published scientific research articles related to the topic over the years.
In 2017, he was the President of the Local Committee of the IX Argentine Congress on Palliative Care, held in Bariloche, with the participation of more than 500 professionals from Argentina and neighbouring countries He is currently a member of the Editorial Committee of the EPEC Pediatric LATAM Project, a project aimed at training in Pediatric Palliative Care in Latin America.
In 2017, he was a TEDx Bariloche speaker, presenting the talk “Let’s Talk About Death with Children,” a talk selected by the TED platform in Spanish.
In June 2019, he presented his first book, Does Dying Hurt?, in which, through stories, he evokes part of his practice in palliative care. The book was presented in Bariloche and Buenos Aires, where it received a warm reception from both specialized and general audiences. The book, Does Dying Hurt? It was presented in Montevideo, Uruguay in October 2019.
In June 2022, he presented his second book, Dos Sillones (Two Armchairs), a collection of stories that blend fiction with autobiography, where themes such as health, illness, death, euthanasia, and grief come to life through stories and characters.
He dedicates part of her work to the dissemination and promotion of palliative care. |Article in the newspaper “La Nación” (Argentina) 2019| – |Article in the newspaper “El Cordillerano” (Bariloche, Río Negro) 2020|. He is an international speaker and regularly participates in conferences and events in Argentina, the Region, and Spain.
Alejandro is the Founder and current CEO of Cultura Paliativa, a platform that develops news, educational projects, and digital offerings related to the palliative care field in Argentina and the region.
