Palliative medicine is committed to supporting and accompanying patients so that they can spend the rest of their lives with the best possible quality of life. But not every critically ill or elderly patient can benefit from palliative care – such as the cruel truth in German hospitals and nursing homes.
While even an S3 guideline exists palliative care in oncology, whose aim is to enable the best possible treatment and care of patients with an incurable cancer, not cancer, decrepit patients have significantly poorer cards to be cared for palliative care. But even non-oncological patients have a right to be properly cared for in their last hours of life. Unfortunately, elderly seniors without cancer rarely benefit from palliative care because no one thinks about giving them access to palliative care. Here, doctors and nurses alike would be asked to get the ball rolling. The beginning of palliative care should not be linked to diagnosis or prognosis, but to the needs of patients.
Furthermore, the number of palliative care facilities in relation to the total population is very close and the need for palliative care is still largely estimated on the basis of cancer patients. In addition, in non-oncological patients the prognosis often can not be estimated as accurately, so that the palliative medical need is usually recognized too late. In cancer patients, on the other hand, palliative care is relatively clearly indicated in the last two to three months, given a rapid deterioration in the state of health.
Next year, the German Nursing Day will again be held in March in Berlin, where interested parties from the care industry will meet to exchange ideas and help shape the future of care. There, two spas will also be dedicated to the „different approaches to palliative care today“ as well as to „continuity in cross-sector care for oncological patients“, but unfortunately again the focus is on the cancer patient.
A greater permeability of the sectors in the care of seriously ill and dying people, demanded on the occasion of the World Hospice Day of the Catholic Hospital Association Germany (kkvd). Only if the specialists of non-oncological disciplines are sensitized for the timely palliative medical care, the palliative medical needs of other patients can be recognized in time. Palliative care could occur in parallel with the causal treatment and be temporarily intensified, if this is necessary from the patient’s point of view. The primary goal is the preservation or improvement of the quality of life, but not the extension of the lifetime.
