دکتر عبد الرحیم حزینی

Palliative Care: An Important Right for Cancer Patients in Iran
(Presented in the 3rd International Congress on Medical Law, 22-24 Feb 2011, Kish Island, Iran)

Iman Doostan, Abdolrahim Hazini.

Medical Doctor, Research Director, Trained in Palliative Care
Hematologist, Oncologist, Palliative Care Specialist from Italy

Palliative Care Center, Seyed Al Shohada Cancer Hospital, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Supported Financially by Alla Charity Organization.

Background: Despite modern advances in treatment of cancer patients, nearly half of cancer patients in our country die from their disease, indicating that a great majority of cancer patients will require palliation rather than cure. However, only a few palliative care centers exist in our country. We describe here the set up of a palliative care center in Isfahan province of Iran with the main goal of improving quality of life of patients with end-stage disease.

Methods: The establishment of this program, started from nine months ago in Seyed Al Shohada cancer hospital in Isfahan. The active members work within a multidisciplinary team consisted of a hematologist-oncologist specialized in palliative care from Italy, six family practitioners, two trained nurses, one psychologist, two spiritual counselors (Rohani) and one nutritionist. Other volunteers may join the team as needed. Patients are referred by oncologists and radiotherapist in the city and are accepted to receive palliative care to the end of their life.

Results: The program has been successful to give care during the past nine months. The services briefly consists of 75 in-patient admissions, 784 out-patient visits, 1186 telephone-based consults with palliative care practitioners, 479 psychological consults and 78 home care visits covering major cities surrounding Isfahan city. Patients" family members were asked to complete FAMCARE satisfaction questionnaire and the results indicate that 89.3% were satisfied from our palliative service.

Discussion: The authors believe that palliative care has been successful to give the rights of end-stage cancer patients by offering a broad range of services to control distressing symptoms such as pain, giving education to patients and their family, relive suffering of patients, facilitating access to medications such as morphine, psychological and spiritual assistance and focusing to improve quality of life. Therefore, we suggest a have a policy to expand this system in other parts of the country.

Acknowledgement: We would like to thank other active members in our palliative center including: Dr. Babak Sadeghpoor, Dr. Roodabeh Moosavi Fereidani, Dr. Negar Tafi, Dr. Vahid Mehrnoosh, Dr. Shadi Esmail poorian, Parastoo Yarmohammadi, Maedeh Ghasemizadeh, Maryam Jandaghian and Razieh Aliasgarian.