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Palliative care must be empathetic: Shantha

Staff Reporter

`Hospices and care providers must avoid commercialisation'

CARE FOR VICTIMS: The Police Commissioner, R. Nataraj (left), flagged of a rally of students to mark World Palliative Care Day on Saturday. Dr.V. Shantha of Cancer Institute (WIA), is to his left. — Photo: N. Sridharan

CHENNAI: Palliative care treatment for cancer must include senior oncologists in decision-making, said V. Shantha, Magsaysay awardee and chairperson of Cancer Institute.

Calling for integrated and collaborative effort, she said an experienced staff and multi-disciplinary treatment was vital as palliative care demanded more skills.

Palliative care programme must be accepted as a mission and senior level staff should only take decision on treatment regimen. Hospices and care centres were not for the terminally ill but offered supportive care, she said.

Sharing her thoughts on the first World Hospice and Palliative Care Day observed on Saturday, Dr. Shantha said successful palliative care would include communication and empathy. Palliative care providers should develop a rapport with patients. "Doctors paying [a] breezy visit can have a negative impact on the patient. Doctors must be taught to say pain is treatable. There is an unfounded fear of addition [to drugs] that is why dosages are under prescribed." Expressing concern over the huge rural population that do not come for treatment at early stages and the resource constraint that organisations would face, she cautioned hospices and palliative care providers to avoid commercialisation and wanted the centres to be research-oriented.

Dr. Shantha was speaking at the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day celebrations organised by Jeevodaya, the first hospice in south India set up in 1990. The hospice, promoted by Franscican Clarist Congregation, began as a palliative care centre for people with cancer and took in its first inmate in February 1995. Of the more than 2,000 inmates the hospice has had so far, 1,941 died in the care centre. The hospice members performed rites for some 70 residents.

Jeevodaya began providing home care service in 1992.

Dermatologist A.S. Thambiah presented the lifetime service award to R. Nanjunda Rao, president of Jeevodaya. On the occasion a booklet on palliative care was also released. Beneficiaries of the hospice shared their experiences and students of Social Work at Loyola College staged a street play.

Earlier, the city Police Commissioner, R. Nataraj, flagged off a rally organised by the Cancer Institute (WIA) at Elliots Beach on Saturday to raise awareness of the medical, social, emotional needs of people living with diseases such as cancer. Dr. Shantha interacted with the rallyists that comprised schoolchildren.

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