World Palliative Care Day, commemorated yesterday, raises awareness about the medical, social, and spiritual needs of people living with a disease that limits their lives and that of their families.
The Jalisco Health Secretariat (SSJ,) through the Jalisco Pain Relief and Palliative Care Institute (PALIA,) joins the commemoration of World Palliative Care Day with various actions to promote access to this medical service so that it may be a reality for all people who suffer with a terminal illness and also for those with other conditions that require this attention.
Palliative Care is treatment given to alleviate the symptoms and pain in persons with a serious illness, to optimize their quality of life.
The general director of the PALIA Institute, Patrick Pendavis Heksner, reported in a virtual press conference that in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, during 2020 a reengineering was carried out. Far from decreasing the number of attentions, they had increased due to the absorption of entitlement to other institutions, with the aim of serving and "leaving no one behind" who needed palliative care.
"The Institute is here to serve the population. If you have a family member who requires palliative care for any illness, contact us, the doors are open 365 days a year, 7 days a week, and we address emergencies if necessary. We also make home visits when required by the patient," he said.
Likewise, Pendavis Heksner announced the opening of the evening oncological and post-COVID rehabilitation service that is already operating successfully, attended by highly qualified specialists.
In this regard, the deputy director of the PALIA Institute, Edgar Ramón Gallardo Martínez, commented that the care of cancer patients within the Institute represents about 40% of the total, but there are other diseases that due to their characteristics do not respond to a curative treatment, as they can be of the cardiovascular, renal, neurological, and chronic degenerative types, which together make up the remaining percentage.
"Jalisco is a pioneer in the implementation of this type of policies… with the only institute that provides care, and that continues to work to provide and ensure access to all regions of the state with the training of health personnel," said the expert.
As part of the effort to bring services to anyone who requires them, since last June the 24-hour Pain and Palliative Care Course has been carried out, a training that so far has reached 2,102 workers from the 13 Health Regions and Regional Hospitals in the state.
From January to September 2021 at the PALIA Institute, 4,931 visits were carried out between outpatient and home visits. In the same period, 301 minimally invasive procedures have been performed. Among the services provided are medical subspecialties with attention to pain, psychological care, social work, nursing and nutrition.
The Institutional Development coordinator, Abel de Jesús Aguilar Castañeda, added that the care at the PALIA Institute is not exclusively for patients who are at the end of life, but rather, from the moment of a life-threatening diagnosis, the person is a candidate for services.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), palliative care aims to improve the quality of life of patients and families who are faced with life-threatening diseases, reducing pain and some other symptoms, in addition to providing spiritual and psychological support from the time of diagnosis to the end of life.
The World Hospice and Palliative Care Day takes place on the second Saturday of October each year, in this edition it has the motto "Leaving no one behind: Equity in access to palliative care", which highlights the inequity that exists in the world for access to these palliative medicine services and seeks to increase awareness to address this inequality.
The commemoration is organized by the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance, a network of national and regional hospice and palliative care organizations that support hospice care around the world.