Providing Palliative Care in Kenya

Jambo!

Welcome to our third report for the Providing Palliative Care in Kenya project. This is a partnership between the dedicated palliative care physicians, clinical officers, nurses and social workers in Eldoret Kenya and the Indiana Institute for Global Health.

 The team’s efforts have been needed more than ever. There has been a nation-wide nursing strike throughout government hospitals in Kenya. The reasons are complicated but the impact on patient care is significant. The palliative care physician, clinical officers and social workers have all stepped up to do what they can to insure patients pain and symptoms are identified and treated.

In our last update, I mentioned that we received a small grant to pilot the use of telephone monitoring as a means of delivering hospice care for patients who do not have access to home hospice services. That study is underway and we are preparing a second study in collaboration with the wonderful team at the Kimbilio Hospice in Kenya to use a similar approach for patients that are cared for in their inpatient hospice and then discharged home. Your donations are helping us bring pain and symptom management into the most rural parts of Western Kenya.

In June, Phanice, the palliative care nurse on our team, received a grant from the hospital in Kenya to visit the US. She spent three weeks with the palliative care teams in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana. Phanice’s time included a week with Andrea the wound care nurse at Eskenazi Hospital. Andrea was kind enough to provide both education, as well as hosted Phanice in her home. Phanice’s time with Andrea was important since she is the primary nurse providing colostomy care for Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kenya, as well as providing palliative care services to both inpatients and outpatients. Phanice spent a week with me at Bloomington Hospital and we concentrated on pain and symptom management. Overall, she found the experience invaluable and looks forward to implementing what she learned back in Kenya. We all learned from Phanice as well, she asks very insightful questions and her novel perspective helps us expand our views and our approach to medicine. 

As always, thank you for your support! The Palliative Care Team takes patients who present with unimaginable suffering and provides them with pain relief, hope, and most importantly dignity. I have seen it and your donations really have direct impact on people in need.

Sincerely

Ken Cornetta and the Palliative Care Team