Department of Palliative Care

What is Palliative Care?

Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.

Palliative care is explicitly recognized under the human right to health. It should be provided through person-centered and integrated health services that pay special attention to the specific needs and preferences of individuals.

During the consultation

Your palliative care team will talk with you about your symptoms, current treatments, and how this illness is affecting you and your family. You and your palliative care team make a plan to prevent and ease suffering and improve your daily life. This plan will be carried out in coordination with your primary care team in a way that works well with any other treatment you're receiving..

Symptoms that may be improved by palliative care include:

	Pain
	Nausea or vomiting
	Anxiety or nervousness
	Depression or sadness
	Constipation
	Difficulty breathing
	Anorexia
	Trouble sleeping

WHO response

Palliative care medicines, including those for pain relief, are included in WHO Essential Medicines List and the WHO Essential Medicines List for Children. Palliative care is recognized in key global mandates and strategies on universal health coverage, noncommunicable diseases, and people-centred and integrated health services. WHO Guidelines for the pharmacological and radiotherapeutic management of cancer pain in adults and adolescents were released in 2019 (3).

Understanding Palliative Care

The goal of palliative care is to help people with serious illnesses feel better. It prevents or treats symptoms and side effects of disease and treatment. Palliative care also treats emotional, social, practical, and spiritual problems that illnesses can bring up. When the person feels better in these areas, they have an improved quality of life.

Palliative care can be given at the same time as treatments meant to cure or treat the disease. Palliative care may be given when the illness is diagnosed, throughout treatment, during follow-up, and at the end of life.

Palliative care may be offered for people with illnesses, such as:-

	Cancer
	Heart disease
	Lung diseases
	Kidney failure
	Dementia
	HIV/AIDS

While receiving palliative care, people can remain under the care of their regular health care provider and still receive treatment for their disease.