Empowering volunteer nurses, physicians can improve patient wellbeing in Pakistan

• In Pakistan, there are less 10 health facilities that deliver palliative care under the supervision of trained palliative specialists.
• An estimated 40 million people are in need of palliative care in the world.

KARACHI: Community-based palliative care can serve to be a cost-effective method to provide care to individuals undergoing serious illness. Training and empowering volunteer nurses and physicians can change how palliative care — a method of care and support of a patient’s wellbeing by ensuring their physical, social and psychological needs are met — is perceived in Pakistan, according to speakers at the first Palliative Care Symposium at Aga Khan University which was held on the occasion of World Hospice and Palliative Care Day.

An estimated 40 million people are in need of palliative care in the world, 78 per cent of whom live in low and middle-income countries. In Pakistan, there are less 10 health facilities that deliver palliative care under the supervision of trained palliative specialists.

Speakers at the symposium stressed the importance of palliative medicine and noted that it remains a low-priority issue in Pakistan They added that AKU’s School of Nursing and Midwifery has taken the lead in this field by introducing an elective course on palliative care to meet gaps in the national nursing curriculum.

There is a need for increasing public awareness and formalising training to establish palliative care opportunities for homes and at the community level, they added.

Patients who receive early palliative care in the course of treatment of disease have to be given less-aggressive care towards the end of their life and have a longer survival rate since it significantly improves their quality of life and mood, according to Dr Ali Haider, an assistant professor of palliative medicine at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center USA.

Differentiating between hospice and community-based care, speakers noted that while a hospice is a paid practice world-wide, training and volunteering nurses and individuals can be an affordable practice for families to enable better living of patients.

Speakers at the event also highlighted the role of family physicians in providing holistic palliative care to patients with life-limiting illnesses owing to their accessibility to communities. Due to a physician’s familiarity with patient’s health history, they are able to advice on a multidimensional care model for the family.

Speakers also spoke about how palliative care is associated with patients suffering from cancer when in reality both patients and families can benefit from it for any illness that may shorten life. Some people also believe that it should be practiced when a doctor has given up on a patient and there is no hope. Another myth the speakers tackled was about children’s palliative care that it can only be offered in high-resourced settings when in reality, it can be provided in community health centres and in homes too.

“Palliative care, on the flipside, ensures living life as fully as possible through compassionate, patient-centred care,” said Dr Nasreen Saleem, a senior instructor on palliative care at AKU.

The symposium was held in collaboration between the University’s departments of oncology, family medicine, paediatrics and child health and AKU’s School of Nursing and Midwifery. The one-day event marking the theme ‘My Care, My Right’ was attended by healthcare professionals, nursing leaders, social workers, health policy makers and medical education leaders.