Right from my MBBS days, I have seen a lot of pain around me. My journey is the result of putting into practice what I learned. As an anaesthetist, I understood that by using the principles of anaesthesia, I can reduce people’s pain.
However, their issues don’t end with that. An individual, whose pain I had relieved, ended his life that very night! He taught me a great lesson; I consider him among my gurus. We learn in MBBS about diseases, the body, and microbes; no lessons about humans.
Patients should be looked after, fully acknowledging their limitations and issues. That’s care. Palliative care is not just about the end of life.
Palliative care — whether emotional, psychological or social — should begin as soon as treatment starts. Palliative philosophy believes there is no situation where nothing can be done to relieve serious health-related suffering and improve quality of life. When a patient comes in, instead of mechanically taking down details, asking them whether they are in pain and assuring them of care make a lot of difference.
Doctors should incorporate compassion, humanity, love, and empathy. Palliative care is wrongly assumed to be only for cancer patients, or for those who are about to die. Irrespective of the disease, the only criterion for palliative care is: how much of the suffering is health-related? The World Health Organization had responded to this question in 2002, by redefining the definition of palliative care.
They said it has to progress.