Sumy Oblast plans to create systematic and effective palliative care

The issue of palliative care for people with incurable diseases who need qualified medical care and care at all times, as well as the issue of psychological, social, spiritual and moral support, was the subject of a meeting in the Sumy Regional Council, which was held by deputy head Tetyana Golovko.

The leading experts in the field of health care, deputies of the regional council, representatives of public organizations and the clergy discussed the project of the regional program for the development of palliative care for 2018-2020, which is planned to be approved at the next session of the regional council.

"Our Program should become the basis of the regional policy on palliative care for adults and children with cancer, AIDS patients, patients with serious somatic diseases and the elderly, other persons in need of palliative care, as well as increase the availability of opioid analgesics for the treatment of chronic pain syndrome by palliative patients through the pharmacy and medical and preventive institutions of the region. It is important to educate medical and social workers, volunteers, caregivers, guardians, and, of course, the population needs complete and high-quality information about the problems of palliative care," said Tetyana Golovko.

During the meeting, she emphasized that people need a program not for "tick boxes", but effective and specific, with measures that are financially supported. Therefore, in spite of the fact that the document has already been created, it still needs to be revised and some corrections should be made.

As the doctors noted during their speeches, unfortunately, there are currently no national standards for palliative care. At the same time, the people of Sumy decided to prepare their own program, on which specialists and public activists worked for some time.

Its goal will be to eliminate the cause of the imperfect development of palliative care in the region. What's in the way? First of all, the normative legal framework and the system of informing the public about palliative care are imperfect, insufficient funding and a low level of palliative competence in the professional training of medical workers.

The role and responsibility of local authorities for financial, social, spiritual, psychological support of the patient and his relatives should also increase. After the approval of the regional program, it will be time to approve local programs for the development of palliative care. It was these amendments to the program that the representatives of the Department of Social Protection of the Regional State Administration insisted on.

Implementation of the mentioned documents requires adequate funding. It is planned that the discussed program will be financed from regional and local budgets, charitable funds and any other sources not prohibited by domestic legislation. According to a preliminary estimate, the expenses for financing measures for the implementation of the program will amount to 29,597.9 thousand hryvnias.

During the meeting, it was also discussed the need to improve the qualifications of medical workers in matters of palliative care (first of all, it was about students of Lebedyn and Sumy medical schools), ensuring early diagnosis, accessibility at the levels of primary, secondary and tertiary medical care, integration of palliative care into the existing system of medical care, creation of a specialized institution (hospice), introduction of palliative care services at home (creation of mobile teams).

According to the Sumy Regional Council https://sorada.gov.ua/actual/19338-dopomoga-paliatyvnym-hvorym-maje-buty-dijevoju-i-systemnoju.html