BMC PALLIATIVE CARE | Online – 1 June 2016 – Considering the increasing trend in non-communicable diseases (NCD) prevalence and population ageing, improvements in palliative care (PC) access is an urgent issue in public health in low and middle-income countries, like Brazil, and further studies are required to explore this framework. Despite the available health care support and some limited initiatives in PC development, improvements in the access to PC services to patients with life-limiting conditions and their families are required in the Brazilian health care system. To reach these improvements, specific public health policies should stimulate the PC development and define its role in NCD care; professional training structure needs to be expanded; and social awareness and community engagement with PC issues must be debated.
FUTURE HOSPITAL JOURNAL (Royal College of Physicians), 2016; 3(2): 134135. Changing the culture around how palliative care (PC) is viewed by patients and family members in Albania will take time. Education is needed for both health professionals and the general public if the philosophy of good PC, as seen in the U.K., is to be embedded within Albanian society. There is a low awareness of health issues in Albania and people do not have regular check-ups – only seeking help when they have a problem – and they often have to pay, as the public healthcare provision is limited. The PC services in Albania face enormous challenges if they are to embrace a philosophy of care that is truly person centred. Some of these challenges are being addressed... Clearly, there is a need for massive investment in the infrastructure of the health service in Albania and hopefully PC will feature as a priority in the country’s future health strategy. Albania can pride itself on the kind of family support and family values that are less common in the U.K., but on the other hand their attitudes towards terminal illnesses need to adapt to embrace the philosophy of PC as we know it in the U.K.
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JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & PUBLIC HEALTH NURSING | Online – 31 May 2016 – Results of this study show that interprofessional collaboration in community-based palliative care (PC) is highly challenging due to different factors: First of all deficits related to organizational aspects of work constitute a source for conflict: the asynchrony of working hours of family doctors and nurses prevent personal contact, communication and trust building. More than that different professional values regarding PC and dying can cause disturbances in collaboration and affect the personal relationship between professionals negatively. Uncertainties regarding leadership and a failure of meta-communication provide further impediments for inter-professional collaboration. The article provides recommendations how to support and instruct collaborative processes between family doctors and nurses in end-of-life care.
BMC PALLIATIVE CARE | Online – 2 June 2016 – General practitioners (GPs) show a strong commitment to caring for frail older patients until the end of life. This is a challenging and complex task that can take family doctors to the limits of their capacity, but GPs have developed certain strategies to manage these challenges individually in their practice routines. On the healthcare level, there is a significant need for improvement regarding communication and the flow of information between GPs and their various health partners, such as outpatient care, specialist doctors, hospitals and nursing homes. The delegation of activities to specifically qualified physician assistants is already partially underway, but is still underdeveloped in Germany. Strengthening the team approach in primary care could help to relieve the burden on GPs, particularly in rural areas, while simultaneously helping to improve the care for frail older patients.
JOURNAL OF CANCER POLICY | Online – 31 May 2016 – The nature of illness is changing. As a population, we are living longer and survival from disease is prolonged. This, together with a projected increase in the annual number of deaths, presents an unprecedented challenge for health care systems. While the search for a cure for cancer occupies many newspaper headlines, the fact that roughly 50% of people diagnosed with cancer will die from it is barely acknowledged. Our societal focus on cure must not come at the expense of openness about what to do when cure is no longer an option. When Aneurin Bevin founded the U.K.’s National Health Service in 1948, his vision was of a cradle to grave health service, freely available to all. However, the huge progress in maternity care in the intervening decades has not been matched by progress in palliative and end-of-life care. Investment in palliative care has the potential to transform the quality of life and death for patients, and lead to improved outcomes in bereavement for their carers, while potentially avoiding burdensome (and expensive) hospital care. As the world’s population ages, and costs of care become an important component of health care planning, policy makers must turn their attention to care of the dying. The question is no longer why, but how, effective palliative and end-of-life care is provided.
Media Watch is intended as an advocacy, education and research tool. The weekly report, published by Barry R. Ashpole, a Canadian communications consultant and educator, monitors the literature and the lay press on issues specific to the quality of end-of-life care. It is international in scope and distribution. Each month, this section of the IAHPC Newsletter will publish an abstract or summary of an article or report of special interest noted in recent issues of Media Watch (see below).
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