Hospice Care for the Terminally Ill

It is our great pleasure to share with you today that 15 registered nurses from Nepal completed a hospice training program utilizing the curriculum called Palliative Care Toolkit, developed by the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance. Binaytara Foundation volunteer Tricia Reynolds, a hospice and palliative care nurse practitioner from Boise, Idaho, recently traveled to Nepal to train the nurses. The primary focus of the training was hospice visits in the home, though some ideas will be applicable in the hospital setting as well.

Tricia says, "The nurses are young and enthusiastic, and have embraced the palliative care concepts.  Palliative care is holistic care, and includes addressing the social, psychological, and spiritual needs of patients with incurable diseases, as well as their physical needs.  We have practiced communication skills, and how to help families talk about difficult things."

Tricia and the nursing team visited three families in their homes during the training. According to Tricia, "these visits have been much appreciated, at least by the families.  For one family we encouraged them to have the patient take his pain medicine at bedtime, so he would sleep better, as the patient denied pain but was up all night, which was tiring everyone out.  We also encouraged allowing the patient to eat for pleasure, rather than having it as a source of conflict in the home.  For another we facilitated discussion about stopping the oral chemo, which the patient wanted due to side effects, but some of the family was reluctant.  For the third family we simply advised to put the lactulose in juice to prevent constipation.  These may seem like little things, but these little things can make a big difference for patients and families coping with incurable diseases."

With this training and continued support from experts, we expect these nurses to be able to provide hospice care to 10 families per month by July 2016. At this time, the BTF home hospice program covers residents of the city of Patan in Lalitpur district. The terminally ill patients in Nepal are underserved due to lack of trained hospice care providers and the lack of organizations offering home hospice care. You can help us change that. With your help we can provide hospice care to many more needy patients and expand the program outside Patan and Lalitpur district. 
Please support our home hospice program so that we can provide hospice care to many more families.