‘Palliative care is about living and not dying’

LUCKNOW:Despite palliative care specialty in existence since past 20-years, its availability is almost zero in the state, said Dr Abhishek Shukla, founder of Aastha Gariatric Hospital and Hospice.

Sharing statistics on the occasion of World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (October 13), Dr Shukla said, “If population of Lucknow is 40 lakh and elderly population be around 10% (over 4 lakh), you won’t find more than 100 beds for palliative care in the state capital.”

“If UP’s population of 23

crore is considered, the scene will be even worse as far as palliative care is concerned,” he said. He added, “Palliative care is a basic human right that should be an integral part of all Universal Health Coverage programmes such as Ayushman Bharat scheme to ensure patients in need of endof-life care get them.”

“Palliative care allows patients with serious illness to function fully. More so, palliative care is about living and not dying,” said Dr Shukla.

Palliative care is specialized care focused on the pain, symptoms and stress for people with serious illness and World Hospice Day, third Saturday of the October month, is a unified day of action to celebrate and support hospice and palliative care around the world.

“Given the aging population and increase in number of patients requiring palliative care, it is crucial to detect palliative care needs in hospital patients with both cancerous and non-cancerous lifelimiting diseases,” said Dr Shukla on Thursday.

According to a survey, he said, majority of the patients in need of palliative care did not know about this as the communication between patient and doctor/family was not proper.

The theme this year is ‘Palliative Care – Because I Matter’. This speaks to the individual experiences of people directly affected by serious illness and highlights the importance of listening to them when planning healthcare policies.