The Palliative Care movement is more than two decades old. Just its ability to survive and grow from strength to strength is a wonderful story. Community volunteers play a major role in the success and continuity of the program.
Volunteering in palliative care may come in many forms: serving food to a starving family, providing emotional support to the patient and her family, mobilizing healthcare support for the patient and supporting the family in fund raising for medicines and equipment, offering emotional support to the patient and family, providing administrative support to the group, etc.
One of the reasons for the success of this programme is that it has managed to have a healthy mix of trained and untrained volunteers. While untrained sensitized volunteers provide the all-important groundwork for the palliative care service by establishing a social support system eg; food for patients, transport, educational support for children and liasing with the local government, the trained volunteers through an intensive training program are able to support through basic nursing chores, mobility and provide emotional and psychological counseling.
Its no wonder then that the World Health Organisation recognizes this simple yet powerful model of providing healthcare and the Economist Intelligence Unit report hails this programme as a “beacon of hope”. Lets hope we see this programme replicated in many parts of India and the world.
Their new campaign "Tracks we Leave" is a simple yet powerful way of mobilising millions who want to support but are looking for an avenue to contribute- so if you think you can spare 3 rupees every day for 3 years, you can become a major contributor to this powerful programme as well. Will you?
