The latest issue of Media Watch, compiled and annotated by Barry R. Ashpole (Ontario, Canada) can now be downloaded here. More reports can be found at IPCRC.NET
Articles from Asia Pacific Region:
Palliative care centres hit by shortage of docs, morphine
INDIA (Maharashtra) | The Hindu (Mumbai) – 18 September 2016 – Two years after palliative care centres were set up in eight of Maharashtra’s most backward districts, six are without doctors, only five have morphine licences and three actually having it in stock. While nurses and medical social workers are available, they are not palliative care specialists. More importantly, they cannot prescribe the pain-relieving morphine. Palliative care doctors on contracts were posted at these centres until last year, but left due to a four-month delay in salaries, sources said. Despite an amendment to allow healthcare facilities to stock and dispense morphine, it is not readily available at the palliative care centres. The morphine or the doctors licensed to dispense it are not around. Besides better awareness on the availability of morphine, comprehensive training for caregivers is also needed. https://goo.gl/ARPVOy
Article highlighted to be of particular interest:
The Day Two Talk: Early Integration of Palliative Care Principles in Pediatric Oncology
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY | Online – 19 September 2016 – Since 2000, the number of hospital- and community-based pediatric palliative care services, fellowship training programs, and educational opportunities for non-specialists has dramatically increased. With this growth, the importance of the early introduction of pediatric palliative care, regardless of stage and prognosis, has been repeatedly demonstrated and has shown to substantially affect outcomes in multiple areas including patient symptoms and suffering. The day two talk guides pediatric oncology clinicians without specialty training in pediatric palliative care, in integrating principles of pediatric palliative care at diagnosis in a manner that allows for ongoing exploration throughout the course of a patient’s treatment, irrespective of outcome. https://goo.gl/G2SZDl
Reinventing palliative care: hospice in hospital
POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL JOURNAL, 2016:92(1089):426-428. Despite the success of the hospice movement, only around a quarter of all deaths in England take place in hospices and at home. Most hospitals now have a small, specialist team of palliative care doctors and nurses, who offer guidance to other staff. However, the services they provide are limited. In theory, clinicians from other specialties should all be trained in good symptom control, but few hospitals follow the recommendation that this should be mandatory, while some offer no training at all. Realistically, hospital wards often cannot meet the needs of people who are dying, mainly because there are other patients who need attention and might recover as a result. https://goo.gl/sJP3me