Dimapur, October 13 (MExN): The Eden Medical Centre (EMC) celebrated the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day on October 9 under the theme, “Leave No One Behind: Equity in Access to Palliative Care.”
The event was attended by attended by medical professionals, social workers, NGOs, church leaders as well as attendees from multi-dimensional profession, as was the actual intention so as to reach out to the public through different channels, informed a press release from EMC.
The theme of the day was shared by Dr Nepuni Athikho, Consultant of Palliative Care & Elderly Care, EMC, where he introduced the history of Palliative Care and main components.
WHO defines Palliative Care as “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families who are facing problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual.”
The treatment is not just limited to cancer patients, as understood by many, but is extended to many other conditions as patients of stroke, kidney diseases, paralysis, elderly, mental health, HIV/AIDs, etc., and many other life-threatening and life-limiting diseases, the EMC release said.
The theme also focused on encouraging the people help everyone in need of the service and to give extra help to those who need it and are incapable on their own, it added.
Palliative care address suffering beyond physical symptoms and the palliative care team comprising of doctor, nurse, social worker, psychologist, chaplain, dietician, physiotherapist, and more when required, the release said.
As a team, they address practical needs of the patients and the family from all areas to help patients and families live actively with a better quality of life, hence the program included the talks on “Govt initiatives in Palliative Care,” by Dr Obangjungla CMO, Longleng; “psycho-social needs,” by Linoto Assumi; “pastoral roles,” by Glory Merry and “importance of palliative care among HIV/AIDs patients,” by Dr Hotoka Hesso, SMO ART Plus Centre, District Hospital, Dimapur.
All the speakers exhorted that the care services should make accessible all deserving patients and families while Dr Obangjungla and Dr Athikho also emphasised on the training needs of healthcare workers to take Palliative Care to all the districts of Nagaland, the release said.
The EMC provides hospital care as well Home Palliative Care (HBC) services for those in need but are limited to travelling inconveniences due to transport, lack of man power at home, time constraint, immovable situations, financial difficulty for long stay hospital bills etc, it informed.
The team can be reached at 9366208396 between 9:00 am – 4:00 pm on weekdays, it added.
