Palliative Care Training Programme Introduced for Healthcare professionals Across 14 States
New Delhi- To enhance the quality of palliative care services across India, the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) and Pallium India have recently launched the Singapore-India: Palliative Care Accessibility Core Training (PACT) Project.
This is PACT and SIF's fifth initiative, inspired by successful projects in Indonesia and China. The project contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being and SDG 17 - Partnerships for Sustainable Development).
In this palliative care project, around 30 PACT participants will be trained and mentored to share their knowledge with their peers as well as medical students. In addition, the project will also involve healthcare professionals from 14 Indian states from both clinical and non-clinical aspects of palliative care.
According to The Hindu media news report, participants can take a study trip to Singapore and take part in an online seminar. Participants will learn to manage complex symptoms in palliative care; care for non-cancer patients with renal, respiratory, cardiac and neurological conditions and also learn advanced care planning and communication skills for palliative and end-of-life care.
A multidisciplinary team from Singapore International Volunteers (SIV), comprising geriatricians, palliative medicine, music therapy and adult education specialists, will run the programme. The programme will be led by Ramaswamy Akhileswaran, senior palliative medicine consultant at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.
Moreover, the project will envisage supporting allied health professionals, including medical social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, music therapists and pastoral care workers.
This is a basic course aimed at providing participants with adequate knowledge about the drugs commonly used in palliative care for pain management and management of other symptoms. This course will also cover essential narcotic drugs and narcotic drugs as well as technical legal information on purchasing, storing, distributing and documenting them.
