2023-05-29 22:00:45
- Currently, it is estimated that only one in 100 Mexican patients receives this alternative to reduce their pain.
- Doctors must be ethical and recognize their values and virtues, as well as those of the patient: Mónica Osio Saldaña.
- Palliative care is useful in patients with terminal cancer, HIV/AIDS, terminal dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), non-transplantable kidney, liver or heart failure, among other medical conditions.
The main function of doctors is to take care of the health of their patients, although in the end it must be remembered that they cannot solve everything. There are some terminal diseases that cause irreversible damage. In this type of situation, it is necessary to make a transcendental decision about whether the right thing to do is to prolong the pain or offer alternatives such as palliative care.
It is a controversial subject that should be analyzed in depth and not superficially. With this in mind, Monica Osio Saldanaa member of the Global Studies Seminar of the UNAM School of Medicine, gave a conference to offer his position.
with the title of “Palliative sedation from the perspective of medical personnel”, He indicated that the problem with imaginaries is that “we lack generosity to talk about this topic, as well as unity to recognize that often what I know, intuit or believe is not exactly the whole, nor the reality.”
In the hybrid academic meeting, broadcast from the Aula Alejandro Rossi, of the Institute for Philosophical Research, the specialist specified that even when it seemed certain and well-known, “rarely do we take into account that medicine is not an exact science, but rather a science of certainty and an art of probability. In other words, what we are going to offer are probabilistic outcomes in which there is uncertainty”.
He also said that medicine offers scientific knowledge about a health-disease process, although it is the patient himself who actually provides 50 percent of that understanding: how are my symptoms, experience, lifestyle and coping, with what I have resources to deal with this health-disease process and what are the closest or most important links that I have or have at hand.
Doctors need to listen more to patients
He pointed out that if the doctor did not listen to that other 50 percent with empathy and did not encourage the patient’s self-knowledge to explore these experiences, “it will be difficult for me to understand the patient’s health-disease process, because I am only left with a basic technical part that will not be useful to me.” useful to solve their true needs and those of their family”.
Given this, he pointed out, it must also be admitted that doctors must be ethical and recognize what their values and virtues are, and those of the patient. They must make a suit tailored to it, “even if it goes against what I would consider important.”
When talking about this issue, we must refer to a topic about which much is said and little is known, “because we consider that they are exclusive for people in the final stage of life; however, it is an approach that is applied to non-curable patients who could live many years with a disease and who must be offered a better quality of life during the time they are going to live”.
In Mexico, as of 2009, palliative care is integrated as a right to health. 13 years after having this guarantee included in the General law of healthwe have not been able to implement it in all medical units, despite the fact that technically from the legislative and social point of view we have all the bases to do so.
What is palliative sedation?
On the other hand, he stated that the palliative sedation It is one of the standard tools that few people in the medical field know about. It is used with the purpose of diminishing a state of consciousness by means of the application of a medicine in the amount necessary to avoid suffering.
It is a process that is coordinated and accompanied by the health team and that does not have the purpose of hastening death or prolonging the life of the patient, just disconnecting the conscious part so that they do not suffer from a symptom that medicine cannot control in any way. Another way.
This condition can last from 48 to 96 hours, nor does it speed up the death process, but it does change the perception of those who accompany the person who is dying. The obligation of doctors is to work with him during the pain-disease process and also in death, so that he is in the best conditions for peace of mind, with ethical and legal responsibility.
Also read:
Here you can download the Official Mexican Guide to Palliative Care
Soccer player from America joins the IMSS to give happiness to a terminally ill child
All diseases for which palliative care works
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