Only about 2% of the nearly one crore elderly people who require palliative care getting the same underscores an urgent need for palliative care expansion, including the government opening care units in every taluk, said Sushil Jathanna, Director of CSI Lombard Memorial (Mission) Hospital, Udupi.
He was speaking at the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day programme at Mission Hospital’s Vatsalya Palliative Care Unit on Saturday. The programme was organised in association with the Giants Welfare Foundation, Brahmavara, and Lions Club.
Dr. Jathanna said the elderly population was witnessing an increase and soon it could form 15% of the total population. Nearly one crore elderly people in India were in need of palliative care; but only about 2% were getting it, he said underlining the need for more care units.
He said that the concept of palliative care as a specialised discipline was first initiated by Cicely Saunders in 1964 after the death of her father and other loved ones following terminal illness. She started the St. Christopher Hospice in London, which in turn resulted in the hospice movement. In India, the first palliative care unit, Shanti Avedna Sadan, was started in Mumbai in 1986 by a young cancer surgeon, L. J. DeSousa, who had visited St. Christopher Hospice and met Cicely Saunders.
Vatsalya Palliative Care Unit was started in April 2023 and has 20 residents. The hospital plans to expand the unit in the near future, Dr. Jathanna said.
Published - October 16, 2023 10:11 pm IST
