Palliative care – it is “my care, in a way that is comfortable for me”

By Dr Anjana Surath, Medical Oncologist & Palliative Care Physician, Basavatarakam Indo American Cancer Hospital & Research Institute,

Palliative care is the medical care provided to those who are suffering from a serious illness and are on the verge of making sure that the treatment no longer works. Mentioning that a cancer or other disease has reached a terminal or terminal stage means that the patient’s life will end soon and his disease will no longer be treated in medical terms. Rather than prolonging the life of the patient with toxic drugs at this stage, the goal is to reduce the patient’s feeling and lead a better life at the end. This is the goal of palliative care. Hospice is the organization or home that provides services to achieve this goal.

Palliative care seeks to alleviate and alleviate the physical, psychological, and spiritual problems of the patient, his or her family members, by relieving the patient of chronic illnesses, the challenges faced by their families, and reducing the problems, improving the patient’s life and thereby relieving pain and suffering. Folium means a clock that a magician covers over his body, just as palliative care covers the physical and mental problems that plague a patient. It is an integrated approach that provides the complete health care a person needs until they die.

Common causes of pain, malnutrition, indigestion, respiratory problems, bed sores, lack of proper sleep, anxiety, and stress may be overlooked by physicians who usually treat the disease because their focus is on the patient’s major illness. As a result, the patient may not be able to lead a quality normal life in some cases. In such cases patients can alleviate these problems by contacting the palliative care medical team. Another of its main goals is to encourage the person to do his or her own tasks in general.

India is facing two challenges due to non-communicable diseases like Covid, Flu, TB, non-communicable cancer, late stage heart disease, brain, lung and liver related diseases. Deaths due to these have been reduced by undertaking various immunization programs to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. As well as the coming modernity in medical science, due to the increasing science, the diseases which were considered as a refuge in the past have now become chronic diseases.
Such chronic non-communicable diseases are now the leading cause of death in the country. Currently a large percentage of people live longer despite suffering from more than one disease. Most of them have to go for medical treatment for various ailments. It is choking our health care systems. It is estimated that palliative care services are currently needed for 5.4 million patients in our country. This includes those who have reached the final stage.
Good death – the right of every dying patient

A good death means that the patient, the patient’s family and those who provide the services will have no grief, no grief, and the medical, cultural and other ethical standards will be met in accordance with the aspirations of the patient and the family members. But it is still a dream in India. India ranks 67th out of 80 countries in the world, according to a 2015 survey of worldwide mortality standards by UK experts. The reason for being at the bottom of the list of such quality deaths is the lack of proper awareness on palliative care in the country or the services to be taken in life at the last stage. The goal of palliative care is to see that a person dies with dignity, without any pain or suffering.

99 Palliative care services are not available to 99% of the population in India. Only 2 percent of the 1.2 billion people have access to palliative care.
One out of every 5 people who commit suicide suffers from a chronic illness and is nearing death
The severe economic impact on the patient’s family due to the lack of proper social security is greater than the severity of the disease
• The mistake that can easily get your claim denied is to fail, especially in the absence of proper palliative care systems, especially in the private sector.
Thousands of elderly people living alone without companions, confined to their bedrooms, are still unable to go to medical services.
In the case of Kerala alone, it is estimated that 1,70,000 people over the age of 60 are living alone, of which 143,000 are women.
No longer socially and culturally backward groups – i.e. women, children, sex workers, LGBTQI community, people with mental problems, people who emigrated for survival, tribals, those in prisons. People who live in remote areas due to geographical conditions, those who live in environmental or man-made hazards have a long list to say the least.
People who are addicted to various drugs, including infectious AIDS and TB, suffer from chronic pain.