There was this lady in my neighbourhood when I was growing up. Ever since I remember her, she was frail with wrinkles and white hair. She lived alone and one day I heard she was no more. She had been really unwell for a while and with no one to take care of her and tired of her increased stays at the hospital, and knowing she didn’t have much to live anyway, she committed suicide. I wish she had known about the Palliative Care network in Kerala.
Most people who are incurably ill need a little more than physical and medical support alone. Psycho-social and spiritual care is equally important, which is very difficult to materialize through institutionalized care. The physical complexities of progressive and life threatening disease, coupled with attendant emotional and psychological consequences, demand careful coordination between primary, secondary, and tertiary care. The community approach is the only realistic model for achieving significant coverage and continuity of services for terminally ill. This is a realistic option in most communities where inter personal relationships have not yet fully died out. And the Palliative care movement in Calicut, the teeming volunteers and the impact it has been creating over two decades shows that it is not just a pipe dream.
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