Palliative Health Care: on Finding the Right Health Care Centre
29 December 2009Palliative care (end of life care) is any variety of medical care or treatment that focuses on subduing the severity of symptoms, instead of endeavoring to stop, or reverse advancement of the illness. The goal is to prevent and relieve the discomfort and to better quality of life for patients inflicted with critical illness.
Yet, not all end of life health care services are the same, and there has been a lot of rumours (and established cases) of neglect (and sometimes abuse) happening in institutions that lead to individuals putting up with significant pain over elongated periods of time. For instance an accusation is made against Northern General Hospital who are charged with negligence with a particular patient they were looking after, with details of communications with the patient’s daughter and the hospital.
And so we mustn’t be complacent when putting our loved ones in the charge of others – family and friends of a patient should be alert and ensure their loved one has professional attention.
Should your family member or friend be receiving health care under the National Health Service, there’s an NHS complaints procedure one can follow if you want to make a criticism.
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