Spike in hospice care during Covid

Hospice and palliative care services are seeing new demand as more patients find themselves terminally ill at home in the wake of a global pandemic putting strain on the public health system.

The CEO of the Hospice Palliative Care Association (HPCA), Ewa Skowronska, highlighted the unseen role these services are playing in the Covid-19 pandemic.

“During Covid-19, we have been able to understand these services more and it is a chance to see the role it can play. Right now, families are being separated and it is difficult. Some patients are dying and some are having very bad symptoms and the recovery is very difficult,” she said.

“When patients get out of the hospital, they are often weak, physically and mentally. If they were on the ventilators it is difficult for them to breathe on their own and those are the ones which come to hospice to recover.

“In hospital, they only keep them for a week or so before making space for someone new. But the recovery time from Covid-19 is long, especially for patients with pre-existing conditions.”

Palliative care was being offered by trained health workers offering specialist support in areas critical during the pandemic such as pain and symptom management, communication with families, spiritual support and bereavement counselling.

Families and patients were often unaware that they should expect holistic support when facing life-threatening diseases, Skowronska said.

At the Ladies of Hope centre in Ennerdale, south of Johannesburg, plans are in place for a 14-bed Covid-19 centre in conjunction with three local doctors.

“We received a donation of seven oxygen concentrators that could help 14 patients,” said CEO Myrtle Williams.

“The centre will house patients with breathing problems who cannot be admitted to hospital.”

HPCA’s 103 member hospices across SA who care for patients with life-threatening diseases, predominantly in the comfort of their own homes, implemented strict standard operating protocols early in the pandemic to protect the highly vulnerable.

As the lockdown continued, some hospices extended it to care for those affected by Covid-19.

According to Tersia Burger, CEO of Stepping Stone Hospice & Care Services in Alberton, the centre was increasingly recognising that virus infections fell within the palliative care category.

“People are ‘broken’ by Covid-19,” said Burger, who tested positive for the virus herself.

“Many need rehabilitative support. Their families are also under stress as everyone suddenly faces mortality and there is a long recovery process.”

Skowronska said: “Hospice is not a building, but a philosophy. It is essentially the desire to promote quality in life, dignity in death and support in bereavement.

“Hospices deliver home-based care, community centres and in-patient around-the-clock care.”

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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