JUNE 21, 2020
Mind the Gap
I have just come off two different zoom meetings and am left with and overwhelming sense of ‘Mind the Gap’. If you have travelled on the underground train system in the UK you will be aware of the voice over the loud speaker on repeat, that reminds passengers to ‘mind the gap’ – don’t fall between the platform and the train. It is now an iconic phrase.
It is starting to feel that way in palliative care. For years, the palliative care community has been pleading with the medical fraternity to adopt the principles of palliative care. And NO, palliative care is not the same thing as end of life care. It is about filling the gaps in caring for patients. It is not disease focused, it is not territorial and it is not about the doctor.
Palliative care is all about working in a team of health care professionals that can fully, truly see the whole patient in front of them. And who is the patient?
I have just come off two different zoom meetings and am left with and overwhelming sense of ‘Mind the Gap’. If you have travelled on the underground train system in the UK you will be aware of the voice over the loud speaker on repeat, that reminds passengers to ‘mind the gap’ – don’t fall between the platform and the train. It is now an iconic phrase.
It is starting to feel that way in palliative care. For years, the palliative care community has been pleading with the medical fraternity to adopt the principles of palliative care. And NO, palliative care is not the same thing as end of life care. It is about filling the gaps in caring for patients. It is not disease focused, it is not territorial and it is not about the doctor.
Palliative care is all about working in a team of health care professionals that can fully, truly see the whole patient in front of them. And who is the patient?
Right now, we have patients that we can’t fix. We have always had patients we can’t fix, but now COVID-19 has taken this ugly fact and smashed it into consciousness. Suddenly health care workers are acutely aware of the gap and they are scared; because it can’t be fixed with PPE or a ventilator.
Health care workers all over the world are being confronted with extremely ill, highly symptomatic patients that deteriorate rapidly. They have little or no training in the management of pain and shortness of breath. They have little training in caring for the dying, let alone the patient that is dying alone, separated from family, isolated from others and disconnected from their healthcare worker by what looks like a space suit.
Caring in COVID-19 is requiring raw honest conversations with patients and their families. Very often only over the phone.
This is the gap in healthcare; caring for the whole patient only highlighted now by the sheer volume of patients and level of distress in healthcare workers and society across the board.
My only hope is that post COVID-19, in our new normal, the world will have recognised the value of palliative care and not lose what we have learnt.
All seriously ill patients have the right to good palliative care. Let’s go back to being human!
For further resources refer to www.palprac.org
