Palliative care – illness, dying, and death as biological-medical and socio-cultural phenomena

Abstract

Introduction In modern global times, the answer to the question of how to live well is palliative care. It is a type of care that is dedicated to creating circumstances in which the process of dying, and death itself, becomes a dignified and acceptable moment. The palliative approach is based on empathy, understanding, on preserving the dignity of the patient, on open two-way communication, as well as on caring for the patient’s family.

Objective This article comprises three aims. The first aim refers to introducing our professional milieu to the basic concepts and philosophy of palliative care. The second aim points out the importance of multidisciplinary and comprehensive care (physical, psycho-social, and spiritual) in palliative care in general. The third aim is to critically consider various obstacles and resistance that exists in our environment regarding the organization of palliative care, through the prism of various models of palliative care around the world, particularly in Europe and in the regional countries. To search the literature, we used the following databases: Web of Science, PubMed, SCIndeks, Google Scholar; by the following keywords: palliative care, neonatal palliative care, nursing, palliative pain, national palliative care program. We presented the analyzed data using a descriptive method.

Conclusion If the right to palliative care is seen as a special human right, it can be concluded that our country lags significantly behind developed countries in this regard. Hence, the preoccupation of the author in this paper is the theoretical foundation of palliative care, with special emphasis on the multidisciplinary team. The purpose of this paper is to point out the connection between palliative care and the phenomenon of the quality of life, as something that is extremely important not only to each individual but to the society as a whole.

Keywords: palliative care; quality of life; social protection; multidisciplinary team