October 2024
Dear Friends,
We are excited to invite you all to the Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of Pallium India’s new HOME!
Venue: Sabarigiri International School, Njandoorkonam, Powdikonam-Pothencode Rd, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TGZBYp3nUfpMACQDA
Date & Time: 5 October 2024, 03:30 PM
*Sign Language Interpretation will be available
Please join us in person and be a part of the event.
If you are unable to be present at the venue, please join online – the event will be LIVE streamed on our Facebook page. Follow us now to get notified as soon as we go Live. facebook.com/palliumindia
Welcome to a new edition of Pallium India’s newsletter. Thank you for joining us. Here you can find updates from the palliative care world, upcoming events including training for professionals and volunteers, interesting articles, career opportunities and so on.
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Register now! Applications closing soon: Global Fellowship in Palliative Medicine 2025
Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS) presents one-year hybrid fellowship program
Course start date: 02 January 2025
Duration: 1 year
Eligibility: MBBS / BDS
Doctors with disabilities are encouraged to apply.
Stay tuned for palliative care news, views and updates
Kerala Cricket League team, Alleppey Ripples, supports Pallium India
Alleppey Ripples, thank you for allowing Pallium India to be with you during your match at Kerala Cricket League at Trivandrum. And for your kind donation of ₹500,000 to Pallium India.
Perhaps you may not guess what a huge difference this will make to numerous people in pain and suffering. Shri T S Kaladharan and all at Alleppey Ripples, you chose not to turn away; you chose to do your bit to ease lives in agony. All of us at Pallium India are grateful to you.
And friends at Kerala Influencers’ Community, thank you for giving visibility to our work. The more people hear about palliative care, the less the burden of needless suffering in our community.
Thank you, Alleppey Ripples, and Best Wishes!
Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS), Pallium India
| Beneficiaries reached till August 2024: | 26,858 | |
| Palliative Care centres / services catalysed: | 205 | |
| Stakeholders trained (virtual and onsite): | 10,534 |
KUHS one step closer to integrating palliative care to healthcare
In 2016, Kerala University of Health Sciences (KUHS) took a very important step by incorporating the principles of palliative care into the existing undergraduate MBBS curriculum.
In the last few years, significant progress was made with the help of many discussions between Dr. Mohanan Kunnummal, the VC of KUHS and Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS), Pallium India. His vision to groom medical students into humane doctors who treat their patients with a person-centred (instead of a disease-centred) approach led to a Faculty Development program, which had online and onsite components.
Video of the Month
The New Indian Express interviews Dr M R Rajagopal
Read the interview (in English): Palliative care is not just about death, says Dr M R Rajagopal
Click here to watch the video (Malayalam): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdNXRyWKYgE
Subscribe to Pallium India’s youtube channel for videos related to palliative care and our activities. You can watch previous webinars and training sessions, as well as listen to caregivers, survivors and others sharing their experiences.
World Hospice and Palliative Care Day
World Hospice and Palliative Care Day is an annual unified day of action to celebrate and support hospice and palliative care around the world.
The WHPCD theme for 2024 is Ten Years Since the Resolution: How are we doing?
The year 2024 marks 10 years since the World Health Assembly (WHO’s Governing Body) passed the only stand-alone resolution on palliative care, calling for all countries to “strengthen palliative care as a component of comprehensive care throughout the life course.”
Read more about the day and how you can contribute
NATIONAL
Palliative Care in Patna
Rajendra Dutt Bijalwan (Regional Facilitator, Pallium India) visited Patna from July 16 to July 19 to explore the current status of palliative care in Bihar. He met with state and local authorities as well as palliative care providers at the Mahavir Cancer Sansthan, Patna.
FDA Maharashtra joins the pain relief movement
In an initiative to overcome challenges with obtaining pain relief medicines and to extend support to all medical institutes of the state, Shri D. R. Ghahane, Joint Commissioner – FDA (Food & Drugs Administration) Maharashtra, initiated an opioid awareness session for the entire department. Pallium India collaborated with the department to organise this virtual session on Aug 30th 2024.
Sunanda Samal, Regional Facilitator, Pallium India, writes >>
Blogs / News / Articles
Health Systems and Access to Medicines in India
This article delves into the key factors influencing access to medicines in India, including health system fragmentation, health financing, and the role of out-of-pocket expenditures (OOPs).
Breaking the Silence: The Urgent Need for Suicide Prevention and Awareness
World Suicide Prevention Day is observed on September 10, every year. It’s crucial to acknowledge the devastating impact of suicide worldwide.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds, with men being twice as likely to die by suicide as women.
Shockingly, over half of all suicide deaths occur before the age of 50.
Navigating the Pharmaceutical Landscape
This article delves into the intricate journey of medicines, from their discovery in laboratories to their availability on shelves and ultimately reaching communities worldwide.
Living wills gain traction in Kerala, empower individuals to ‘leave peacefully’
The living will, or advance medical directive, has become increasingly popular among individuals in the state who wish to avoid prolonged life through intensive care, despite challenges in its implementation.
They serve as written expression of a person’s preferences, enabling kin to honour wishes sans guilt or conflict at critical time.
About preparing a living will
The world has enough technology now to stretch out the dying process by weeks or months even when there is no reasonable chance of return to reasonable quality of life. Much of this prolongation of ‘dying’ can be at the cost of a huge burden of suffering to the person and the family.
In the light of the Supreme Court judgement of 2023 which validated advance medical directives (living will), it is possible now to create a legally binding document expressing our wishes about how our end-of-life care should be like. In their article, Ms Dhrithi Bhandari and Dr Asoke Mathew of Lakshmi Pain and Palliative Care Trust describe what each one of us can do to protect ourselves and others.
They recommend five steps:
- Hold education and awareness campaigns
- Offer legal assistance
- Integrate AMDs into electronic medical records
- Provide training for healthcare providers
- Facilitate conversations
Please read: For dignity in life… and death – an individual’s preference must be respected even when it cannot be voiced
Thank you, Ms Dhrithi Bhandari and Dr Asoke Mathew.
Pax Lumina on “The World of Senior Citizens”
“Mahatma Gandhi once said poverty is the worst form of violence. [] If he were alive today, he would have described something else as an even worse kind of violence – the way our society treats the elderly.”
Dr M.R Rajagopal writes in the September issue of Pax Lumina.
Please read the whole article (page 47 to 50):
Shape of things to come, let us hope
The Goa Cabinet has approved a scheme for grant of Rs 2.5 lakh per month to government, NGOs or institutions running palliative care centres for senior citizens with chronic diseases such as Cancer, Brain Stroke, Parkinsons and Alzheimer’s to improve their quality of life.
Congratulations, Dr Roop Gursahani
Congratulations, Dr Roop Gursahani, for being the recipient of International Neuropalliative Care Society (INPCS) Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award was conferred on 21 September, 2024, at Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Onam Celebrations at Pallium India – September 13, 2024
(Photo credit: Dr Arjun Devarajan)
Join us in making India pain-free! Subscribe to our newsletter for updates.
Karuna Evam Shanti Vahini Foundation wins prestigious award
Congratulations to Sonalini Mirchandani and Raghu Roy, founders of Karuna Evam Shanti Vahini Foundation, and their incredible team for winning Don Norman Design Award for initiatives that are “humanity-centred in design”.
We applaud their work in palliative care, led by adivasi nurses and social workers who have gone beyond the call of duty and brought compassionate and person-centred care to remotely-located hamlets in Nandurbar, Maharashtra.
Events / Trainings / Conferences
Certificate Course at Thiruvananthapuram
We invite doctors and nurses to join this six weeks certificate course in pain management and palliative care, at Trivandrum.
Start Date: October 7, 2024
Doctors: MBBS or BDS
Nurses: Any recognised degree or certificate in nursing
Volunteer Training at Thiruvananthapuram
Palliative Care Training (in Malayalam) for caregivers, family members, students, volunteers and others who are interested to learn the basics of palliative care
Date: 19 October(Saturday) – 20 October (Sunday)
Time: 9 am to 5pm
To register, contact: 811 382 7540
Foundation Course in Palliative Nursing – Online
Foundation Course in Palliative Nursing is an online course aimed at training nursing professionals and final year nursing students in pain management and palliative care.
Indonesia International Cancer Conference
Bridging North and South in Accelerating Cancer Control Advancement
03-05 October 2024 | Bali – Indonesia
Organized by Ministry of Health – Republic of Indonesia
Essentials of Palliative Care – India (EPCI)
Self-Directed learning course for Nurses and Doctors
EAPC Congress 2025
Work for Palliative Care
For more openings, visit our CAREERS page:
https://palliumindia.org/category/career
In case of queries, please write to us: career@palliumindia.org
Book of the Month
How We Die: Reflections of Life’s Final Chapter
Sherwin Nuland’s How We Die (published in 1994) has become the definitive text on perhaps the single most universal human concern: death. The book examines the current state of health care and our relationship with life as it approaches its terminus. It also discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.
Shewin Nuland’s masterful How We Die is even more relevant now than when it was first published.
‘Walk with the Weary has helped me in a great way’
Vaikunth Ramesh writes:
‘Walk with the Weary’ by Dr Rajagopal may be a personal reflective exercise of a life well lived. But it is a reminder to all health workers why they do what they do – to touch humanity!
Vasudha K. writes in Amazon:
The book caught my attention since I was struggling with my mum’s cancer care and I must say that reading the book has helped me in a great way.
In a culture where discussion on death is considered a taboo and a bad omen, this book is a must read for anyone who is interested in knowing about the end-of-life care. This book is all about a more empathetic and compassionate approach to healthcare.
Palliative Care Telehealth
Call us: +91 964 588 4889 / +91 860 688 4889
PARTING SHOT
Silent Suffering: The Tragic Consequences of Parental Conflict on Children
As I was reminiscing the past, an older man opened the door and came in. He held some files in his trembling hands. He seemed confused, because he didn’t know why he was in here. One of the doctors in SAT had referred him to us; that’s all he knew. I seated him near me and tried to make him comfortable. A few minutes later, he said that his grandchildren were admitted in the burn care room.
The next sentence shocked us all: he said, his 7-year old granddaughter had 95% burns and 2-year old grandson had 35% burns. Their story gradually unfolded.
Sibin Satheesh writes in ehospice India >>
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