“When I remember my mother, it makes me really sad. But, when I remember my father, it makes me smile,” said actor Nagarjuna, referring to the need to have a fully evolved palliative care treatment options for terminally ill persons.
On Friday, the star actor turned emotional and poured his heart out to share the difficulties his family faced during treatment of his mother Annapurna Akkineni and thespian actor Akkineni Nageswar Rao.
“I strongly feel the urge to talk about it and make others aware on the importance of palliative care. Despite being able to afford the best medical care, my mother endured a lot of pain for seven years due to various health complications. Not a single doctor came to us and told us that there was an option for us in palliative care,” he lamented.
The actor, who was the guest of honour at the inaugural International Conference of Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPCON-2015) in Hyderabad, narrated the ordeals his family underwent due to health complications of his parents.
“In her last days, my mother experienced a lot of pain but we could not do much for her. When she was still lucid, she requested us to move her from hospital to home. Despite VVIP status, we could not do much to lessen the pain other than shifting her. As a family we underwent a lot of emotional trauma in her last days,” he recalled, with tears brimming in his eyes.
The actor pointed out that eventually palliative care helped his family to come to terms with the medical condition of Akkineni Nageswar Rao. “Luckily, in the final stages of my father’s life, we came across doctors practising palliative care here. The medical morphine and counselling sessions to our family members helped us. True to his nature, my father was smiling when he died,” he said.
Nagarjuna said that terminally ill patients should not be allowed to die in pain and their families should never undergo the trauma of looking-on helplessly.
