Comparing palliative care provision in India and the UK

Abstract

The Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow is committed to developing culturally competent, sensitive services to meet the needs of local ethnic minority communities. The clinical nurse specialist for widening access travelled to India, funded by a travel scholarship from the Florence Nightingale Foundation. The main rationale for this visit was to observe and compare palliative care practice in India in community, hospice and hospital settings with the current service provision by the hospice/hospital palliative care teams in Glasgow. A second focus was to study the cultural differences and potential challenges of providing palliative care to a diverse Indian population from multi-faith communities and different socio-economic classes. Throughout the visit the barriers to accessing palliative care services in India were observed as well as cultural norms that might impact on clinical practice in the UK.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Palliative Care: A Mixed-Methods Study from Bihar, India

“…To The Editor, Even though palliative care has been present in India since the mid-1980s, provision of services has not kept pace with demand: coverage is poor as evidenced by per capita morphine consumption (a proxy indicator for access to palliative care). 1,2 There have been very few studies in the literature which systematically examine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of palliative care providers in India, [3][4][5][6][7] and none in Bihar, a populous state in North India of over 110 million.…”

Why is hospice care important? An exploration of its benefits for patients with terminal cancer

“…Yet a large portion of India lacks palliative care facilities except for Kerala [17,28]. Even in the area that covers palliative care, it is only available in major metropolitan cities, this makes the rural population left out in availing the facility because of lack of awareness, absence of insurance, poverty and high charges on transportation [1,11,15,23]. Out of 908 palliative care services in India, 841 are in the state of Kerala.…”

Collusions Between Patients and Clinicians in End-of-Life Care: Why Clarity Matters

“…These reports rightly underline that 1) collusion is a transcultural phenomenon, 11,14 2) occurs frequently in the palliative care setting, 11e13,18,23 3) has the function to avoid unpleasant or painful feelings, 13,15,16,19,20 and 4) is often triggered by prognostic communication. 11,14,15,18,21,23 However, this literature also shows important conceptual shortcomings which are summarized in Table 1.…”