According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients facing life-threatening or life-limiting illness and their families/carers. It prevents and relieves suffering of the patients through early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other physical, psychosocial or spiritual problems1. A team approach is used in palliative care to support the patients to live as actively as possible until the last moment, and support their families / carers during the process as well as in bereavement.
Palliative care is required by patients who suffer from life-limiting conditions, commonly from cancer and other serious chronic diseases such as kidney failure, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and neurological diseases. There is often a misconception that palliative care means end-of-life (EOL) care and is equal to “giving up”2, and that it is only for patients at the last stage of their illness. On the contrary, palliative care should be provided along with the curative treatment to support the patient at any stage in a serious illness. It aims at relieving the symptoms of both the disease and the treatment, such as pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, depression, etc. In fact, palliative care is most effective when considered early in the course of the illness, which not only improves quality of life for the patients but also reduces unnecessary hospitalisation3. Therefore, palliative care is not limited to end-of-life care, but embraces end-of-life care. It is an integral part of the care continuum.
In Hong Kong, palliative care service is mainly provided by the Hospital Authority under a comprehensive service model for patients and their families including in-patient, consultative service, outpatient, day care and home care services and bereavement service through multi-disciplinary teams of professionals including doctors, nurses, medical social workers, clinical psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, etc. For details, please visit the Hospital Authority Website (www.ha.org.hk) >> Service Guides >> Other Medical Services >> Palliative Care Service:
https://www.ha.org.hk/visitor/ha_visitor_index.asp?Content_ID=10096&Lang=ENG&Dimension=100&Parent_ID=10085&Ver=HTML