International Collaborative for Best Care for the Dying Person

This article originally appeared in ehospice

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The International Collaborative for Best Care for the Dying Person Foundation Course was held between 11 and 13 January 2016, at Bangalore Baptist Hospital (BBH) in association with the Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC).

The course was a success, with 30 participants from 16 palliative care organisations attending from all over India.

Prof John Ellershaw, Chair of the International Collaborative, and Dr Susie Wilkinson, Liaison Lead, were the resource persons from the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute, Liverpool, UK.

Support for the programme by the Makhijas (Hong Kong) and Kurian Foundation (USA) is gratefully acknowledged. The facilities for conducting the workshop at BBH and the excellent team work of BBH staff were much appreciated.

The well-structured and informative programme included group work as well as a good session on legal issues in end of life care, facilitated by Mr K.G. Raghavan, senior lawyer and Dr Pradeep Rangappa, intensivist.

It concluded with an ‘Action Plan’ for the year 2016, which included the following agreed decisions:

  1. All centres have agreed to participate in this pilot study and expressed commitment to roll out the programme in their respective centres.
  2. The common documentation of care during the last hours and days of life will be called ‘Guidance and Care Plan for the Dying’ (GCP-D).
  3. Prof Ellershaw will send necessary documentation to include this programme in India as a work package of the International Collaborative titled: ‘Project India’. Dr Stanley C. Macaden will continue as the IAPC Lead for ‘Project India’.
  4. A steering group will proceed with permission to use the ‘Collaborative’ documentation and its content validation for the Indian situation will be done in one or more palliative care units coordinated by Karunashraya.
  5. This will be published in the Indian Journal of Palliative Care in its 2016 April issue.
  6. With this publication, administrative and ethics committee approval will be obtained from all centres to conduct this programme of quality improvement and research of care for the dying.
  7. The data collected over a year from the pilot centres will then be analysed and published in the Indian Journal of Palliative Care.
  8. The results will then be shared with all other stake holders and used for advocacy with the Government and Legislature to create an end of life care policy for the dying, and supportive laws to enable this.
  9. All participants were requested to attend the pre-conference workshop on ‘End of Life Care’ at Pune on 11 February 2016.

We look forward to following the progress of the Collaborative in the months to come.

Published on: 17 February, 2016 | Last modified: 17 February, 2016