rooms offer hospice Shanghai terminally ill patients better terminus

  Ten bedridden patients with terminal cancer are in the dark, quiet room Palliative Jing'an Temple Community Hospital in Shanghai. Most are assistants who support a little work at a time.<a href="http://www.luxuryperfectbag.com/louis-vuitton-men-bags-c-20.html" target="new">Louis Vuitton Men Bags</a>

Dong Wenying, 54, usually spends about an hour a day to his father-in-law of 81 years, Zhenping Gu, a patient with lung cancer who was in the area for three months to visit.

"Our house is small, and we do not have enough hands to take to my father and mother," she said. "The palliative care service helps us a lot and relieves much of the burden on my family. Otherwise we would have to send the old man to the hospital and then forced to leave the hospital every two weeks, as we had in the last four years.

"My father-in-law was among four hospitals to receive the after shot we asked agreed. Fact is that no hospital in Shanghai is ready to accept the terminally ill cancer patients."

Dong-family is one of the few who made a project of the municipality in which 18 community health centers ordered room open palliative care have benefited last year. Each center has 10 beds, but the supply is short of demand.

About 36,000 people die from cancer each year in Shanghai, but the city had almost no palliative care beds. Public hospitals are not in those who die because there is no money to be made by the Contractor interested. Thus, the final step in the life of most patients an intensive care unit or emergency room.

Li Shui, an official of the Health and Family Planning Commission, Shanghai local department of health, said that the proposed palliative care, a humanitarian initiative of the city government, which means that Shanghai is more civilized than was showed other cities on the mainland. She said that the project had arisen in response to the huge public demand.

In March last year, while Shanghai Party Secretary Yu Zhengsheng said high school teacher Qin Ling his interest in the struggle of the Qin show to medical treatment for his father, who was suffering from terminal cancer search. Qin wrote an open letter to Yu said that hospitals "forcibly" discharged his father or do not want it because of its status as a terminal or admit it because they were full. Yu said the government would try to change the system.

Li said, turning existing neighborhoods neighborhoods hospice cost the government 27 million yuan (HK $ 34 million), with most of the funds from district governments through Shanghai. Each bed, which cost about 12,000 yuan a palliative care room, as they were designed so that patients lie in comfort.

"The room is decorated in warm colors to create an environment gays should be set up," she said. "Some community health centers also hang pictures of God or Buddha near beds, according to the religion of the patient."

After intensive training 120 medical personnel were allowed to work in palliative care. Some hospices visited Hong Kong last year during a trip by the health authorities of Shanghai organized.

Li said that the demand was for the current palliative care units in Shanghai, the only ones whose admits hukou (residence registration) is in the same area as the room, and people had to wait an average of about three strong weeks before admission.

Xu Huiming, director of Jing'an Temple Community Hospital, said one day in his room, a patient palliative care costs 218 yuan, much less than the average cost of housing in a hospital in Shanghai. Patients with terminal cancer remained there for an average of 29 days before dying.

He said that the health of the individual applicant has been assessed and those that could probably survive for less than two months to be approved.

Dr. Miu Jun, the only physician in the department, said that convince people who have left all hope of saving their beloved relatives employed much of his time at work.

"Most of my patients always ask parents to try what we can to prolong the lives of patients," he said. "But I tell them that this is adding more pain for the patients I ask them." What is your goal? Do you want your report to die in peace and without much pain? "

He said, do not understand some of his colleagues in the hospital, the concept of palliative care, because they had learned in medical school that the medical staff should cure disease and save lives.

Miu said in his parish nurses could be depressed and have been under a lot of pressure when they saw die in one night is not less than four patients.

The city government said that the next step for Shanghai open spaces palliative care was in large hospitals in the next three years. But Li said it would be difficult because large hospitals were generally reluctant Room palliative care because of financial problems and the fact that state funds to support the project was thin to open.

Dr. Huang Cheng, Department of Oncology of great public Jingan District Hospital, said the hospital turned all patients with terminal cancer, and he knew that the small hospitals in Shanghai also reluctant to take in.

"The authority of the health insurance that every bed in public hospitals not too long of a patient so that medical resources can be used to serve more people," he said. "But patients of terminal cancer may remain for weeks or even months."

Huang said that doctors do not prescribe medication for patients, instead of check-ups or chemotherapy, and it was not profitable for his department.

The authorities also plan to further develop palliative care for terminally ill patients who remain at home rather than in institutions.

Professor Shi Yongxing, a palliative care expert in Shanghai who has studied the subject for over 10 years is based, said stay-at-home palliative care is the best option for most patients with terminal cancer to the future, and that there is a good fit with traditional "family-centered" culture of China.

"Many people prefer to be home with their families around them die," Shi said.

Miu said palliative care was not popular at the moment, with only 26 patients in the community after registering for, even if there are more than 2,000 residents with cancer.

"I think people will continue with the treatment of cancer for as long as they can afford," he said. "People are fleeing discussion about death and dying education is non-existent in our society."

But Dong said that the children of his father-in-law had come to accept that the old man was soon to die.

"My father-in-law should be grateful to the last phase of his life, stay in the room at the hospital where the doctor and nurses are nice to him, and he did not need to be mixed to spend between hospitals," said she said .<a href="http://www.luxuryperfectbag.com/louis-vuitton-men-bags-c-20.html" target="new">louis vuitton bags for men</a>