June 2026
This June, as the world observes World Environment Day, we turn our attention to an often-overlooked conversation: the impact of environment on palliative care practices and needs.
From extreme weather and difficult terrains affecting home-care visits, to poor living conditions, climate vulnerability, and the growing burden on caregivers, the environment shapes how people experience illness, suffering, and care. Through this edition, we explore the intersection between environmental realities and compassionate care and reflect on the need for healthcare systems that are not only patient-centered, but also resilient, accessible, and sustainable.
Editorial: The Impact of Environment on Palliative Care Practices and Needs
Palliative care is deeply connected to the environments in which people live, receive care, and experience illness. While palliative care is often understood through the lens of symptom management and quality of life, the role of the environment, i.e., physical, social, economic, and ecological, is increasingly becoming central to how palliative care is practiced and delivered.
In a developing country like India, climate change and pollution to overcrowded hospitals and inadequate living conditions, environmental factors significantly influence the needs of patients with serious illnesses and the ability of healthcare systems to care for them effectively.
Climate Change and the Growing Need for Palliative Care
Climate change is now recognised as one of the greatest public health threats globally. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, floods, droughts, air pollution affect people living with chronic, serious, and life-limiting illnesses.
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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Beyond the Sessions: Reflections from the Field
Maybe the Truth Is
We Don’t Lack Compassion Outside, We Lack It Within
Is compassion really disappearing from the world—or is it something quietly fading within us?
Not very long ago, I was having a conversation with a friend. He shared something simple, yet deeply moving. In his neighborhood, most residents are elderly. Their children live far away—often in different cities or countries. Yet, whenever someone needs help, people show up.
He told me about a man in his late 50s helping a 72-year-old neighbor get to the hospital during a stroke because his children were abroad. Another instance—an elderly man supporting his even older friend with meals. Small acts, quiet gestures, but full of humanity.
Around the same time, I witnessed something similar in my own life.
A close friend’s father had developed severe bedsores. Despite having a caregiver and repeated requests from the family, he resisted repositioning himself because of pain. He had recently undergone surgery after a fall—a common reality in old age—and preferred to lie still, perhaps out of fear, or perhaps because something deeper had shifted within him.
A Day Called Nurses’ Day
This year too, Nurses’ Day arrived right on schedule. But as always, our preparations still hadn’t reached anywhere close to completion. Every year we tell ourselves we should plan earlier. Even if the planning never fully comes together, somehow, we always manage to pull it off in the end.
Like every year, we decided on the theme colour, and each of us set out in different directions to get things ready. All this preparation is, in some way, to hear those words of appreciation about us. Because Nurses’ Day is probably the one day when nurses hear the fewest complaints.
For those of us who routinely end up doing every possible duty – electrician, plumber, security, and countless other roles, complaints are never in short supply. If the tap doesn’t work, if the bulb doesn’t light up, if there’s dust on the floor, the nurse somehow becomes the first culprit.
And yet, hearing appreciation like this brings a special kind of joy.
What Does It Mean To Care For Someone With a Serious Illness?
A day in the life of a counsellor and nurse in Mumbai as they provide home-based palliative care, helping patients and families face illness, loss, and uncertainty with dignity.
Iqbal,* 35, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2022. Beyond the physical and mental toll of his illness, he and his family had a lot of decisions to make. His wife, Neena,* would soon become the primary breadwinner and caregiver to their two young children. Iqbal hadn’t prepared a will, and his assets were in limbo. Moreover, he did not wish to inform his parents of his prognosis because of a strained relationship with them.
Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS), Pallium India
| Beneficiaries reached till March 2026: | 30,682 | |
| Palliative Care centres / services catalysed: | 256 | |
| Stakeholders trained (virtual and onsite): | 12,375 |
Annadanam: Meals Full of Love
Celebrate your birthday, anniversary, or honour the memory of a loved one by sharing a warm meal with patients and caregivers at Pallium India’s In-Patient Unit. Your gesture will nourish 20 patients and 20 caregivers (40 beneficiaries) with love and care. Each meal you sponsor is a gift of care, love, and nourishment for patients and their families.
Our Palliative Care Demonstration Centre supported by the National Health Mission, at Jayanagar General Hospital, Bengaluru, will serve as an out-patient clinic and an anchor for home-based care, referral linkage centre, community participation & volunteer orientation hub, training site for healthcare professionals, and offer physical and social rehabilitation services.
We are now raising funds to support the OPD setup and essential infrastructure, including medical equipment, surgical instruments, electrical items, admin and utility cost.
Upcoming Events, Trainings & Conferences
Openings
For more openings, visit our CAREERS page:
https://palliumindia.org/category/career
In case of queries, please write to us: [email protected]
Stay tuned for palliative care news, views and updates
Reports / News / Articles
Report of Community Listening Session on Home-Based Palliative Care in Karnataka
Organised by Pallium India – Karnataka Mission
Introduction
A community listening session on home-based palliative care was conducted as part of Pallium India’s Karnataka initiative to understand the lived experiences, needs, challenges, and expectations of caregivers and families caring for loved ones with serious illness at home. The session aimed to gather meaningful insights that would help shape Karnataka’s evolving home-based care model into one that is compassionate, practical, community-driven, and responsive to real needs.
Lessons from Mundiapally
Integrating Palliative Care into a Secondary Care Centre in Kerala
– Deepak Varughese, Deepu Jacob and Leejia Mathew
Reflection 1
“Nanni ond, moné. Elarodum thanks parrayanay.” (Thank you, son. Please convey my gratitude to everyone.)
These are not the words one expects to hear at two in the morning, moments after the death of a loved one. Yet, they were the words spoken to me by the aging wife of the late Mr. P, a resident at our center. As I placed a hand on her shoulder and promised my prayers, I walked out of that room of grieving relatives reminded of the quiet but vital role the centre plays.
Pallium India Signs MoU with Government Dental College Trivandrum
In a significant step towards strengthening holistic healthcare, Pallium India’s Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Government Dental College, Trivandrum on 07 May 2026.
The MoU was formally signed between Dr. Padma Kumari, Principal, Government Dental College, Trivandrum, and Dr. Sunil Kumar M.M., Director, TIPS, Pallium India.
Restoring Comfort, Dignity, and Hope
For more than a decade, Prakash Kumar Bastia lived with oral cancer.
Diagnosed with carcinoma of the buccal mucosa in 2013, the 42-year-old underwent surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy in the hope of recovery. But despite years of treatment, the disease continued to progress. Over time, Prakash needed a Ryle’s tube for feeding and a tracheostomy tube to help him breathe.
Behind the medical struggle was a family trying their best to hold on.
Prakash lived with his wife and their two daughters, one in her 3rd year of college and the younger still in school. The family was already under severe financial strain, and his wife herself struggled with health issues. As Prakash’s condition worsened, so did the emotional exhaustion within the home.
Video of the Month
Caring Beyond Cure: Dr Shani on Palliative Care and Public Health
What does it truly mean to care beyond cure? A Nursing Next Podcast with Dr. Shani Sequeira, Palliative Care Nurse Consultant, who talks of the importance of palliative care and public health in improving the quality of life for patients and families.
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.
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Book of the Month
How Beautiful We Were
Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, this is the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations are made – and broken. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. But it will come at a steep price – one which generation after generation will have to pay.
How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold onto its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.
Walk with the Weary – by Dr M R Rajagopal
A masterclass in how to care for others deeply and compassionately no matter who they are, Walk with the Weary is simultaneously the story of Dr Rajagopal’s life and his calling and the world of Indian palliative care.
Palliative Care Telehealth
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Parting Shot
Between Farewells and Responsibilities
Tonight, the darkness feels heavier than usual. There is a strange weight inside my chest too. As Achu lies beside me, drinking milk and falling asleep, why are my eyes fixed on him without blinking? It feels as though something lost and directionless is trapped within them. Faces flash before me again and again — faces I deliberately tried to forget — rushing back into my mind without warning.
But here, I alone remain awake.
Everyone else is asleep. Asleep in a way from which they will never wake again.
You are probably wondering who these faces are. Akash, who presented me with colourful paper flowers; Niranjan, who gifted me a Christmas morning; Reshma, my namesake, who looked at me, even while breaking under unbearable pain, and asked, “Chechi, why did you cut your hair?”; and Anashwara, who whispered fearfully, “I am scared to sleep… what if I die?”
The night Anashwara was afraid to sleep was yesterday. That is why, today, I tried to erase her from my memory. But her questions keep drumming in my ears. Why was she so afraid of death? Hasn’t she gone to her mother and father now?
Have you ever watched a child sleep? I watch them. Because there is an indescribable beauty in a sleeping child. There are several of us who do this — watching them sleep, often in a slumber from which they will never awaken.
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