Carmen Uscatu – Palliative care is not about giving up
shared a post on LinkedIn:
” ‘Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.’ –Sydney J. Harris.
Palliative care – some people think that it is about death, and death shouldn’t be discussed. I heard at a conference at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital how hard it was for them, 15 years ago, to introduce palliative care into their daily practice. They believed that they fight for every child to survive, and introducing palliative care would mean that they were giving up. But in the end, it’s not about giving up; it is about what people at Prinses Máxima Centrum voor kinderoncologie (Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology) say: it is about comfort. You can’t say that death doesn’t exist. It exists, and you have to treat life with respect, even when life comes to an end.
I was talking last week with Erna Michiels at Prinses Máxima Centrum voor kinderoncologie about their palliative care program, about how their comfort team works for the benefit of children and their families. Children want to go home and spend time with their friends and families. The team at Prinses is in contact with the family and their general practitioners or pediatricians 24/7.
Marie Curie Hospital has succeeded in becoming part of a project initiated by Prinses Máxima Centrum voor kinderoncologie with funding from the EU and support from Dăruiește Viață (Give Life) in which our doctors and nurses can be trained to develop palliative care for the children that will be treated at Marie Curie Hospital. We will learn from the best, and this is great.”
