SINGAPORE - For more than three years, Miss Charmaine Chia suffered backaches
before she was diagnosed last May as having Stage 4 kidney cancer.
Unfortunately, no one in her
family knew about palliative care from the start to help manage her pain.
The once very active 27-year-old
suffered excruciating pain as the cancer spread and affected her nerves.
"She said it was like
constantly having ants biting her yet not being able to do anything about
it," her mother, Madam Vivien Tay, 59, recalled.
It was only in the final week
before she died that Miss Chia received palliative care at home in Jalan Buloh
Perindu, off East Coast Road - from home care nurses and doctors of the Assisi
Hospice. A family friend had asked her parent to approach them for help.
"She was given morphine to
relieve her pain and finally, when she died, she went peacefully and without
being in agony," said Madam Tay.
Like Miss Chia's family, as many
as two-thirds of Singaporeans do not know what hospices do or what palliative
care is.
Singapore Hospice Council (SHC)
chairman R.Akhileswaran said a Forbes survey on hospice services, commissioned
by the SHC in 2010, showed that only about 40 per cent of the population know a
little about hospices.
"When asked to give the
details of what hospices offer, they equate the services to those of elder
care," Dr Akhileswaran said.
He said more needs to be done to
improve end-of-life care in Singapore.
Conference
To bring even medical
professionals, like doctors, nurses and allied health workers, up to speed with
the latest in palliative care and hospice services, SHC is holding its fifth
Singapore Palliative Care Conference this weekend.
Themed A Tapestry of Care -
Engaging Minds, Reaching Hearts, this year's conference will draw more than 550
participants.
"We have invited speakers
from Harvard and Hong Kong universities to share their experiences," said
DrAkhileswaran.
As in many societies, death is
considered a taboo subject in Singapore, so many refused and are still not open
to the idea of talking about death - especially their own - resulting in the
lack of awareness to what is out there to die comfortably, Dr Akhileswaran
said.
The Forbes survey also found that
most of those who were not aware come from lower-income groups and "are
the very people who need our services and whom we want to reach out to",
he told The New Paper.
SHC's Community Outreach
Programme has targeted not only the low-income, low-education groups but also
all heartlanders.
"We must let them know that
palliative care can help improve the quality of life of terminally-ill patients
and their families, that palliative care provides relief from pain and other
distressing symptoms," he said.
"This then offers a support
system to help patients live as actively as possible until death." He said
in a way, palliative care also helps preserve the family's last impression of
the dying loved ones.
"With his or her pain well
managed, the patient is very comfortable and the family do not see his or her
suffering. This way the memories of the dying person remain good ones," he
said.
SHC - the umbrella body of
organisations that actively provide hospice and palliative care here -
estimates that about 70 per cent of people with terminal illnesses are dying
without hospice palliative care.
About 17,000 people die here each
year, with one in four receiving palliative care in a hospice, nursing home or
at home. More than half die in hospital.
But there are only only 33
palliative care specialists and 294 nurses trained in palliative care here.
As for Miss Chia, Dr Akhileswaran
said: "In a way, it was fortunate that her final days were made
comfortable. Had she not got help from Assisi Hospice, her parents' memories of
her would not have been that of her life but of her suffering."
Madam Tay said her daughter had
always been a compassionate person who put others before herself. "Two
weeks before she was diagnosed, she quit her job at my insurance firm to
concentrate on doing charity work. She even signed up for a course," she
said.
Hoping that others can learn from
their experience, her parents decided to share how she went through
excruciating pain, barely coping with it and and finally receiving medical
relief from home care nurses and doctors.
"If we had known about
palliative care from day one when she was diagnosed, Charmaine would not have
suffered as much as she did," Madam Tay said.
"Now even in her death she
is reaching out to the community, telling terminally-ill patients that they do
not have to suffer pain. "
"If we had known about
palliative care from day one... Charmaine would not have suffered as much as
she did," said Madam Vivien Tay, Miss Charmaine Chia's mother.
Judith Tan
The New Paper
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