By Marta Koblańska, Photo: Dmitriy, Pixabay
Various civilizations approached differently to people who needed strong care due to their health status. Western civilization is claiming its supreme role in gently transition of human to the end.
Palliative care is a kind of new medicine branch and has not been implemented in some countries, yet. Its major goal is to relief the pain coming from an illness. There are several pain grades dependent also on the type of illness and there are many ways to alleviate it. Palliative care extends life if scheduled soon, what anyway should not necessary result with the other treatment cut off. However, the practice might be different due to costs of a life for the society which the patient contributed to in the past. One or another, palliative care places on the top of modern civilization achievements as it helps in real, particularly when a family can not either afford or match requirements of care for the impaired member. In Poland, who is among top 10 countries throughout the world in advances of palliative care (number 7 in 2019, according to Aleksandra Ciałkowska-Rysz statement in line with the Atlas of Palliative Care), catholic church holds its substantial share in the assessment. However, without volunteers, public money from national health incumbent Narodowy Fundusz Zdrowia having been increased since 2016/2017, private sponsors and many people who just want to give their stake, the situation of patients in palliative care could have been much more difficult.
Blazing legal issues
The situation is not perfect anyway due to legal absurd making the end of life for some patients rather miserable than in good quality. This includes blood and its derivatives treatment rules left to solve by former ruling coalition-party. Blood transfusion can be performed only in a dedicated hospital unit what generates both unnecessary suffering for patients being moved as well as costs of transport. Palliative care specialists together with hematologists and transfusion experts have been fighting to cancel the law to enable the treatment in the place where the patient stays. Polish upper-house of Parliament – Senate, as stated during the conference on palliative care in Warsaw organized by Warsaw Medical University in cooperation with Łodź Medical University and Polish church charity Caritas (Warszawski Uniwersytet Medyczny and Łódzki Uniwersytet Medyczny) has been scheduled to resolve the problem.
The most important issue to solve is thus feeding. There are many home-care units of palliative care in Poland as well as dedicated hospital units but an eligibility to feed parenterarly or directly to gut has been granted to out-patient service. What’s interesting there is an obligation to go there with a caregiver. Usually the condition of a patient who requires such service does not let for free walking. So either specified transport unit is needed or privately-run sophisticated service. How Polish public palliative care is responding to the problem is a mystery. However, during the conference prof. Aleksandra Ciałkowska- Rysz of Łódź Medical University, emphasized the situation must change.
Civilization burden
Due to civilization shift, the demand for palliative care is to rise. More and more and more and more younger people have to face cancer. And despite cancer is being transformed into condition possible to live with for a certain amount of time as long as science-based cure is provided, many humans need the care to relief enormous suffering. In Poland cancer patients constitute 88 percent of the total within palliative care.
As there are emerging many conditions which make humans impaired in a way impossible to fix to enable smooth functioning, the list with recognition of illnesses for palliative care is to widen. Another condition to be added in Poland is an end-stage failure of kidneys. These organs are the key for proper work of the whole body due to their role of a cleaner for an organism from not desired substances or substances in surplus gained outside. They are very often a gate for the heart shape. The fundamental question is thus about the age of people with renal dysfunction to go for palliative care as a ren may be transplanted.
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