An important development on the eve of World Palliative Care Day
Sumitha T.S., Pallium India’s Project Executive, writes:
One of South India’s leading deemed universities, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth (SBV), Puducherry, has started the process of incorporating palliative care into its undergraduate medical curriculum.
We are certain that this would encourage all such institutions to bring in changes that allow professionals to work with more humaneness. Pallium India is proud to collaborate with Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth for this noble cause.
As per Human Rights Watch report, ‘Unbearable Pain, India’s Obligation to Ensure Palliative Care’ (2009), only 5 out of 300 medical colleges in India have integrated some instruction on palliative care into their curricula. Capacity building through palliative care education is also one of the recommendations by WHO. Palliative care approach envisages application of palliative care principles appropriately into practice by healthcare professionals.
We could firmly say that students of SBV are already into palliative care – if wall paintings in their palliative care ward and volunteering works by students are anything to go by. If SBV train students to make their patients smile wholeheartedly, it will be difficult for other students to compete with them without this important training! Moreover, life threatening conditions, dying, end-of-life care and death cannot be ignored anymore.