Published on: June 29, 2026

What happened when I applied the lessons of Pallium India’s Volunteer Training Programme within 24 hours of completing it.

I did not expect a week of online sessions to change how I spent my Sunday. But that is exactly what happened.

I recently completed the six-day Volunteer Training Programme conducted by Pallium India through the iECHO platform. Across six sessions, expert faculty walked us through the many dimensions of palliative care — pain management, emotional support, caregiver wellbeing, communication, and the quiet but profound importance of human presence. Each session was followed by an open Q&A, giving participants the chance to ask, question, and connect.

It was rich. It was practical. And it stayed with me.

The final session concluded on Saturday. By Sunday evening, without having planned any of it, I had already applied three of the programme’s core lessons — not in a clinical setting, but in my own building, with my own family.

Lesson 1: Care for the caregiver

Caregivers burn out. They give everything to the person they are caring for, often silently, until there is nothing left. The programme was unambiguous about this: if we want to support the patient, we must also support the person holding everything together.

My father is my mother’s primary caregiver. My mother is bedridden with severe advanced lung fibrosis, and my father has quietly organised his entire life around her care. I had never stopped to ask how he was doing — not really.

This Sunday, I asked my teenage son to take his grandfather out for lunch. Just the two of them. A few hours away from the house, away from the weight of it all. It was a small thing to arrange. But watching my father leave the house that afternoon, I understood, perhaps for the first time, that he needed it.

Lesson 2: Be present, not just helpful

Patients in palliative care often do not need us to fix something or bring something. They need us to simply be there — beside them, unhurried, without an agenda.

I went and sat with my mother. Not to ask if she needed anything. Not to check on her medications or her meals. I sat beside her, held her hand, and stayed — for close to two hours.

She cried.

I have thought about that moment since. She did not cry because something was wrong. She cried, I believe, because someone was fully present — and in her world right now, that is rare and precious. The training gave me the language for what I witnessed: emotional release that comes when a patient finally feels seen and not alone.

“The patient needs your time and presence more than any medicine.”

Lesson 3: Reach out to the isolated

Illness often withdraws people from the world — and the world, uncertain how to respond, sometimes lets them withdraw. A simple visit, with no agenda other than care, can mean more than we realise.

A resident in my building had been hospitalised some months ago. After returning home, he had not been seen socially — no common area visits, no conversation in the lobby. Nearly three months had passed. I had noticed. But I had not acted.

On Sunday morning, I knocked on his door.

He opened it with a guarded expression — the look of someone who has learned that unexpected visitors usually want something. He asked, politely, what I needed. I told him I had simply come to ask about his health. Nothing more.

He was visibly moved. The guard came down. We spoke for a while. It cost me nothing but a few minutes and the decision to show up.

Three people. One Sunday. All of it traceable directly to six days of structured, thoughtful training.

I do not share this to suggest that I have mastered anything. Palliative care is a lifelong practice, and the professionals who dedicate their lives to it carry a depth of skill and compassion that I am only beginning to appreciate. But the VTP showed me that the principles of palliative care are not confined to hospitals or hospices. They live in our homes, our buildings, our families — waiting for someone who knows how to see them.

My sincere gratitude to Sunanda Samal and the Pallium India team for designing a programme that does not just inform — it transforms. And to the faculty who gave their time across six sessions: the knowledge you shared did not stay in a classroom. It walked out into the world on a Sunday morning and quietly changed things.

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