Calicut | Published on: May 9, 2011

BBC News Online talks about Kerala’s success in palliative care, visiting Dr Suresh Kumar at the Institute of Palliative Medicine in Calicut.

Bringing hope to elderly and terminally ill Indians

By Sanjoy Majumder – BBC News, Kerala

Pain and suffering

Only the rich or privileged have access to proper health care – the rest are increasingly forced to battle alone.

But 2,000km (1,242 miles) away, in Kerala, there is a ray of hope.

At the Institute of Palliative Medicine in Calicut, Dr Suresh Kumar checks on a patient, a poor fisherman who is suffering from lung cancer.

Moved by the pain and suffering of terminally ill patients, the doctor gave up his job as an anaesthetist to set up a ground-breaking palliative care system that has now spread across the state.

“Most of the problems faced by elderly people are not medical. A lot of the issues are social, emotional, issues of loneliness and a lack of money,” he explains.

Read the full article at BBC News…

Thanks to the BBC, Sanjoy Majumder and Linda Pressly for sharing palliative care with the World!

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