Cultural Challenges in Implementing Palliative Services in Turkey

Abstract

Special Edition 1 Palliative Care (PC) is a set of approaches that aims to improve physical, social and psycho- Article Ref. #: 1000PMHCOJSE1103 logical well-being of both patient and the family. PC should begin at diagnosis and continue throughout treatment till the end of life. In Turkey, PC is at its infancy; the Pallia-Turk Project, Article History to improve PC, has been implemented by the Ministry of Health since 2010. Turkish Ministry Received: March 6th, 2017 of Health has launched regulations on PC including both as a home care team and also hos- Accepted: April 24th, 2017 pitalization settlement in 2014. After these regulations, the number of PC units in Turkey has Published: April 24th, 2017 increased significantly. There is no certified PC specialization or resident program in Turkey for physicians and no certification programmes for nurses. However, PC education programs organized both by the Ministry of Health, Middle East Cancer Consortium and international Citation and national cancer congresses by the oncology groups are encouraged in recent years. For Kebudi R, Cakir FB. Cultural chal- most of the families, “palliative care” means end-of-life care. Hence, the health staff in PC, at lenges implementing palliative first, should describe the mission and objective of PC both to the patients and to the families. services in Turkey. Palliat Med Hosp Care Open J. 2017; SE(1): S10-S14. The second most important point is that, the health care professionals should be sensitive and tolerable of various traditions or religious beliefs in order to meet the needs of patients and families and ensure a “good death” and healthy bereavement.