palliative care. The first ever Indian Fellow in Paediatric
Palliative Care completed his training in 2012. The Open
Society Institute generously supported this fellowship
programme.
Future plans
The future plans for the service include strengthening the
existing programme especially in terms of care at home both in
the urban environment and in rural areas. We intend to forge
links within India and the wider region as well as in more
developed countries to develop the best systems to help
children. We envisage also continuing efforts in education and
advocacy.
Conclusion
In India, it is estimated that less than 0.4% of those that
require it have any access to palliative care.12 The National
Cancer Control Programme of India in 1987 referred to
palliative care as a priority. However, most large cancer
hospitals in India, including 18 of 29 government-designated
lead cancer centres do not have personnel trained in palliative
care or are familiar with proper opioid use. In addition, most
programmes that do exist lack paediatric expertise and thus
deprive children and their families of the benefits of palliative
care. Palliative care programmes specifically designed to
address the needs of children are few and far between.
We feel we have demonstrated that integration of palliative
care into a paediatric oncology programme is possible with a
smooth transition to good end-of-life care if needed. The
increase in opioid consumption points to improvement in pain
management. However, further studies need to be undertaken
in this setting to quantify changes in the children's quality of life.
If all paediatric nurses and doctors (both general and
oncology) receive some palliative care training we could hope
to significantly improve the quality of life for children with
cancer and other life-threatening diseases. To that end we
suggest that centres of excellence in specialist children's
palliative care be set up in other regions and developing
countries to provide service, training, advocacy and research.
The integrated programme developed at MNJ could serve as a
model and we hope to make some progress in this endeavour
next year. l
Dr Gayatri Palat is PAX Program Director, India for the Two Worlds
Cancer Collaboration, Canada. She is a consultant in the
Department of Pain and Palliative Medicine at the MNJ Institute of
Oncology and Regional Cancer Centre, Hyderabad, India and
Secretary of the Pain Relief and Palliative Care Society in
Hyderabad, India. Dr Palat is also a member of the Board of
Directors for the International Association for Hospice and
Palliative Care.
Dr Stuart Brown, MRCGP, FRACP, DABHPM is Director, PAX,
INCTR Canada and practises at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital
and Cancer Centre, Canada.
PALLIATIVE CARE
124 CANCER CONTROL 2014
130 223
1532
2922
3057
3404
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Figure 2: Number of paediatric consultations by the MNJ palliative care
team by year
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