27 Sep 2022

Palliative care givers need support because the service they provide is very heavy, time consuming and support is needed from family,  friends as well as the community as a whole.

In an interview, Dr Botsogo Mosupiemang explained  that Palliative care was an approach taken to soften up the blow of a condition or illness one was suffering from.

He said that this could be in terms of pain, psycho-social or spiritual problems.

“It is a multi-disciplinary approach that involves ordinary care givers, dieticians, social workers, psychologists, nurses and doctors among others,” he said.

“Care givers also need financial support since they spend most of their time with patients and have no time or means to generate income,” he said.

He added that giving care to those in need of ‘care giving’ was imperative to society in order to build a cohesive, caring and strong community.

The Ministry of Health through its division of Community Home Based Care (CHBC) recently held a workshop as a build-up campaign to commemoration of  the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day to be held on October 8 under the theme: Healing Hearts and Communities.

The workshop was held to give care givers a platform to come and share experiences on how they looked after people suffering different ailment and best ways to handle challenges encountered.   

Meanwhile, care givers from Francistown and residing villages who attended the event under the District Health management Team  (DHMT) shared experiences and challenges they encountered while taking care of patients.

According to some testimonies from care givers, some patients on medical therapy refuse to take medication or abscond from therapy which are the greatest challenges.

Their call is for everybody to assist in steering absconders and those in medical therapy to follow through the programme prescribed by medical doctors.

Dr Mosupiemang called on the community to attend the commemoration which would  empower residents on how to handle patients and challenges experienced during care. ENDS