Palliative Care and End of Life Decision-making: The Neglected Care Element in Health Service Delivery in India
Keywords:
Palliative care, End of life Care (EOLC), Elderly, Caregivers, Spiritual Health, Terminal IllnessAbstract
Palliative Care aims to improve the quality of life of patients who are facing health issues arising from life-threatening or terminal illnesses. This care segment requires a unique combination of physical, psychological, social or spiritual health, which has to be customized according to the need of the patient. With the ever-increasing elderly and dependents’ population, rising NCDs, in India, the need of palliative care is growing exponentially; and only 4% of India’s population has access to palliative care, much less than the 14% global average. While India has National Programme for Palliative Care, which covers all integral aspects of this care segment; and Operational Guidelines for Palliative Care at Ayushman Bharat Health & Wellness Centers (AB-HWCs) were also launched to supplement, the implementation still lags behind. The paper highlights these implementation challenges and outlines some important bottlenecks in the execution of the programme. Various suggestions to overcome the programme challenges have also been discussed in the paper. The policy and programme should reinvigorate and reinforce the case for personalized nature of palliative care required for the affected people, irrespective of age, race, gender and cause of illness, with a sole aim of dignified end-of-life care to the needful patients.
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