Palliative Care is an approach to caring for and supporting people who have advanced, progressive life threatening illness,and their families. It aims to relieve and prevent suffering holistically by treating pain and other distressing symptoms and by providing honest information as well as emotional and spiritual support.
There is no intent to hasten death nor artificially lengthen the dying process.
World Health Organization definition of Palliative care:
• provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms;
• affirms life and regards dying as a normal process;
• intends neither to hasten or postpone death;
• integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care;
• offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death;
• offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and in their own bereavement;
• uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated;
• will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness;
• is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.
The strength of palliative care in resource poor settings in developing countries: “focus on making a difference to one person at the time”
I was privileged to be part of the establishment of a palliative care training programme in San Lazaro Infectious Diseases Hospital for the poor in Manila, The Philippines, over a period of 6 years. The programme is called the Starfish palliative care programme and is very successful, despite the fact that the hospital is under-staffed and under-resourced.
Their courage and persistence despite few resources comes from this story:
The Starfish
A little girl was walking along the beach. The waves were throwing starfish onto the sand, and they littered the beach. One by one, the girl picked up the starfish and threw them back into the water.
A man walked by and watched the girl throwing the starfish back one at a time. After watching for a few minutes he said “You know, what you are doing makes no sense. You can’t possibly keep up with the waves. There are thousands of starfish. What you are doing makes no difference at all.”
The little girl looked at the man. As she looked at him, a wave threw more starfish onto the sand. She picked one up and threw it back into the water. Then she looked up at the man again and said: “It made a difference to that one.”
Adapted from The Starfish Story by Loren Eiseley
See Also:
Starfish palliative care
rabiesfree.org
Over the past 5 years, a palliative care training programme has been developing at San Lazaro Infectious Diseases Hospital, Manila, Republic of the Philippines with the help of a consultative team from Australia and New Zealand. Read
Download the study: (PDF 157KB)
Rabies: a significant palliative care issue
Sue C. Marsden, Ceri R. Cabanban