Kerala may not be the best place to live in, but it is one of the best places to die at least!
An 80-country "quality of death" report from the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) has found that Kerala has bucked the trend in India, which comes a poor 67th position on the list. The study, which terms Kerala as a beacon of hope amid the lamentably poor access to palliative care across India, has a word of praise for the ‘Kerala model’ in end-of-life care.
“With only 3 per cent of India’s population, the tiny State accounts for two-thirds of India’s palliative care services. Moreover, the State has a formal palliative care policy in place (it is the only Indian State with such a policy) and its government provides funding for community-based care programmes. It is also one of the first of Indian States to relax narcotics regulations to permit use of morphine by palliative care providers,’’ says the report.
Definition
All the more, the State has extended the definition of palliative care to include the long-term chronically ill and even the mentally incapacitated. It attributes the achievement of Kerala in the field of palliative care to the success of the Network in Palliative Care (NNPC) project, which has employed an army of volunteers who deliver services to patients who largely remain in their own homes. The system, funded largely through local micro-donations of as little as Rs10 a month, identifies those who need care through volunteers and supplement the work of health-care professionals linked to the State’s 230 local palliative care units.
The report quotes Suresh Kumar, co-founder, NNPC, as saying that the principles of community involvement that make the programme feasible can be replicated elsewhere. “There are a lot of medical problems, but there are also a lot of social, spiritual and financial issues — so anybody who has time to spare can, if properly trained, take care of these people,” Mr. Kumar says.
