: The Samastha Kerala Sunni Yuvajana Sangham (SYS) is launching a ‘palliative care week’ starting Monday to take medicines, medical aid, relief and other assistance to chronically-ill and bedridden patients across the State.
The ₹5.5-crore project will cover nearly 650 villages in the State. It aims to provide care and assistance to patients’ families rendered helpless after the breadwinner has fallen ill. The assistance includes food supplies for a year, education support for children and a medical card.
SYS leaders told The Hindu that the project was being launched after a survey carried out in more than two-thirds of the panchayats for three months.
The survey found that there were between10 and 20 families in each panchayat that couldn’t meet their daily food needs because of the chronic disease of one of the family members.
The disease had also caused psychiatric problems among many family members.
During the palliative care week, SYS volunteers and aid workers will visit the families. The teams will include medical and paramedical staff and counsellors. Food coupons, medical cards, medicines, wheelchairs, water beds, stretchers and walking sticks will be supplied to families depending on their needs.
Better in north Kerala
SYS functionaries pointed out that the living conditions of chronically-ill and palliative-care patients were better in Malappuram and Kozhikode districts compared to those in the southern districts because of a strong network of palliative-care NGOs and official-level palliative-care measures in the two districts.
