The Need for Palliative Care in Bangladesh Dr. Zafor Md Masud1, Dr. Shahinur Kabir2
Dying with incurable illness in poverty and pain is all too common in this sub continent as well in our country. With minimal resources shortages of health workers, national health systems in a number of South Asian countries have focused primarily on preventive, curative and maternal health services. In many countries minimal or no resources have been dedicated to supportive or palliative care. Palliative care is a developing branch of healthcare that deals with the terminally-ill, incurably-ill and chronically bed-ridden people. A large percentage of the patients who need palliative care are cancer patients in extreme pain; some of them are in the terminal stage. Millions of others suffering from paraplegia, acute renal and respiratory problems, and many other incurable illnesses also benefit from palliative care. In India, they have established Palliative care service with individual institutes. Institute of Palliative Medicine, Kerala has setup an ideal model of Palliative care service in India. According to Bangladesh Cancer Society new adult cancer patients 250000/yr, and total cancer burden 10,00000/yr. This is an institutional based statistics , the actual picture probably far away from it because due to many barriers the majority of the patients could not reach to final diagnosis or avail treatment facilities. According to the oncologists and referral hospitals approximately 75% of the cancer patients attending for treatment are incurable and they get treatment in palliative setting. 30-40% of these patients are in end days of life with lot of sufferings and their admission are refused by the hospitals as our hospitals are overloaded with patients of acute illness. According to Society of Neurologist of Bangladesh ( published in June, 2012) the rate of stroke patients 5-12 /1000/year and among them 35% become permanently disable or depend on care givers. There is no such hospital to support them on a regular basis. Bangladesh, which in the past few years has made some strides in public health, has a large number of people in need of palliative care. The country, with 160 million people and scarce resources and medical infrastructure. Delivering appropriate care for people with incurable progressive diseases in the last phase of life is an important, but largely neglected . In recent year deficits in this field have increasingly come to the attention of the public, and professionals, as have increasing demands for the development of palliative care. The first recognized Palliative Care Unit (PCU) in Bangladesh is ASHIC palliative care Unit for childhood cancer patient at Dhanmondi, Dhaka, which was Established on 20th May 2006 . It consist of 10 beds . Surprisingly, ASHIC is the first Pediatric PCU in Asia Pacific region and only PCU in Bangladesh recognized