Do we need more palliative medicine specialists in India?

With the rising burden of chronic diseases worldwide, palliative medicine has received increasing attention. Introduced in India in the 1980s, it is now offered as a specialised degree in several medical colleges. A recent report by the Rajya Sabha secretariat urged greater coverage of palliative care, especially for cancer, by including it in standard treatment protocols. Experts have been advocating this for decades. Yet, if medicine were truly complete, would palliative medicine exist as a separate branch?

Imagine you are a doctor. An 80-year-old woman falls at home and arrives at your hospital with pain and swelling in her left thigh and lower back. She had been independent all her life, but is now unable to walk. She lost her husband last year. He, too, had lost his mobility and spent six years bedridden before passing away from related complications. Her younger son had taken leave from work to care for his father and has now done the same for his mother. In addition, he is the primary caregiver for his elder brother, who suffers from severe depression. On top of this, he recently took a loan to send his son to college.

source:thehindu.com