A screening tool for Serious Health-related Suffering: please comment.
Would it not be great if every person who enters a hospital were assessed not only with a view to diagnosis and treatment of the disease, but also identifying elements of suffering and treating them?
Like pain, breathlessness or other physical symptoms?
Like depression, anxiety or other emotional suffering?
Or social issues like problems of relationship, role in the family, stigma against the disease?
And would it not be absolutely great if the person’s financial position (including debts) were taken into consideration before planning treatment? Then the person is less likely to abandon the treatment half way through. And we could possibly avoid the financial destruction of families by catastrophic health expenditure.
A task force that met at the venue of National Cancer Grid meeting had agreed on creation of a tool for assessment of Serious Health-related Suffering which could be done in cancer hospitals right on the day of first appearance of the patient in the hospital – taking in the spirit of the World Health Assembly resolution of 2014 for integration of palliative care with all health systems, at all levels, across the continuum of care.
The SHS tool is put up on NCG website: https://tmc.gov.in/ncg/index.php/activities-ncg/palliative-care/tools
The NCG and the task force would very much like to have your comments.
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