Palliative Care and the importance thereof in LMI countries especially.

Why is investment in Palliative Care important; and why is Palliative Care Namibia so critical for CAN and Namibia?

Most people (doctors included) speak of providing “Palliative Care”, but in actual fact they are referring only to “step-down” or “end of life” or “palliation medication” care.

Hospice Care is NOT Palliative Care, but hospice care is one of the components of palliative care.

Palliative Care is in fact the entire care plan, with patient and family support, from the moment of a terminal or serious life-impacting diagnosis. It’s about bringing an interdisciplinary team together to find the best possible care plan, that would include the medical (curative), social, spiritual and pain management components, to support a patient.

Comprehensive palliative care also means that “overtreatment” is avoided, quality of life remains the ultimate goal, and when hospice care kicks in, the entire interdisciplinary team and family know what roles to take on to the benefit of our patients.

In low and middle income healthcare settings palliative care plays a critical part of cost-savings, as overtreatment costs money, time and diverts funds from patients who can still receive critical life-saving treatment.

“While we all want our loved ones to get the best possible treatment, with life-saving outcomes, not all diagnosis can be cured. In cancer care we often see overtreatment, false promises, and poor outcomes that simply contribute to heartache in the end. With quality palliative care, a patient can actually have a prolonged life, by providing holistic care, with dignity and pain management as a focal point, ” explains Rolf Hansen, National Director of the Cancer Association of Namibia and Palliative Care Namibia.

Cancer Association of Namibia and our Palliative Care Namibia programme is proud that our team members have trained, qualified and benchmark with the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town in their specialist department programme in palliative care. We are proud that we have the capacity to bring world class care, to Namibia for Namibia.

Palliative Care Namibia by Cancer Association of Namibia opens in March 2024 after two years of intensive planning, construction and the key interdisciplinary care team being mentored, advised and qualified in this field.
A proud investment by CAN for the future of healthcare in Namibia.