Difficulties to Provide Palliative Care in West Bengal, India

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Objective: In a southern district of West Bengal, India almost 75% of cancer patient die a sad death of neglect due to lack of awareness about palliative care and low economic level. To identify and try to solve to the extent possible the main difficulties in giving palliative care to the terminal cancer patients of the area. Method: Home visit by volunteers and enumeration of the problems as discussed by the patient and their families. Result: Analysis the following data and identify these main problems. Patient problems: Pain, vomiting, respiratory distress, fatigue, etc. Our volunteers visited terminal cancer patients and their families in our areas. Family problems: Inability to match work life with the care of the patients. Adverse attitude of neighbors and local peoples. Social problems: Lack of awareness of the neighbor of local people about cancer and palliative care resulting in isolation of the family. Projected Intervention: Trying to relieve the patient's problems through home based medications and intervention by volunteers and family members. Reorientating the attitude of family members through discussions and other methods of communication (i.e., get-together of cancer survivors). Social effort to raise the awareness of neighbors and local people through discussion and other audio visual method (i.e., poster, leaflet, slide presentation, etc.). Conclusion: We believe that if we are able to continue our program for a long enough period the suffering of the terminal cancer patient and their families might be resolved to a large extent over time.