JEDDAH, 27 February 2008 — Dr. Abdul Shukkoor, a former oncology physician at Jeddah’s King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center, has called for the establishment of an advanced palliative care center in the Kingdom to provide better health care to terminally ill patients and improve the quality of their lives.
“Palliative care offers patients the best possible quality of life during their illness and it serves both patients and their families,” said Shukkoor, who is now working as an international clinical fellow at the Regional Palliative Care Program (RPCP) of University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, which is considered as the center of excellence in palliative care.
Dr. E. Bruera, currently the chairman of palliative care at MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA, and Dr. Robin Fainsinger, director and professor of palliative care at the University of Alberta, are the key persons who established the world renowned Edmonton Palliative Care Program in 1994 and contributed substantially to this field.
A palliative care center will provide symptom assessment and treatment; help in decision-making and establishing goals of care, provide practical support for patients and their family caregivers in all settings, and mobilize community support and resources to assure a secure and safe living environment.
“Different studies have proved that palliative care improves health care quality in three domains, namely hospital, home and hospice and long-term care,” said Shukkoor. “They help in relieving the physical and emotional suffering; strengthening of the process of patient-physician-communication and decision-making; and coordinated continuity of care across multiple health care settings,” he explained.
“A key benefit of palliative care is that it customizes treatment to meet the needs of each individual person,” Dr. Shukkoor said, adding that it would help avoid unnecessary admissions and interventions and explore more realistic goals of care for the patients and their families which in turn will reduce the financial burden on families and wastage of heath care resources.
“The center will focus on the entire person and his/her family and not just his/her illness. The team members will address any social, psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs a patient may have,” he said, while speaking about the advanced facilities and services at the palliative care center in Alberta University.
The team of experts at the palliative care center in Alberta includes physicians, nurses, social workers, religious scholars, psychologists, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, respiratory therapists, massage therapists, pharmacists, nutritionists and recreation therapists.
“You can expect a comfortable and supportive atmosphere that reduces anxiety and stress. Your specialized plan of care is reviewed each day by the team,” he said.
Dr. Shukkoor said such an integrated comprehensive palliative care service is lacking in the Kingdom. “Saudi Arabia has all the potential to establish such a model palliative care center which can train people to serve the needs for the whole Arab world,” he said and hoped that philanthropists and businessmen would come forward to finance the humanitarian project.
“There may be a limit to cure but there is no limit to care,” Dr. Shukkoor said, commending the sincere services of doctors and nurses at the Alberta center. “More than 100 people are involved in the community palliative health care and all of them enjoy doing their work and get mental satisfaction,” he said. “I was asked to make a discharge summary report for a patient when he was transferred to a remote hospital. My professor verified the report and agreed with all contents and made an additional sentence requesting to remove the battery-operated cardiac pacemaker device before the dead body is transferred to crematorium, in case he dies (to avoid a potential explosion from the battery). This implies that palliative care does not stop at the death of a patient. We should also participate in the grief as well as rehabilitation of the family,” he added.
