Palliative Care Service
Introduction
In 1992, the National Cancer Center East Hospital opened the Palliative Care Unit as its only palliative care service. The main purpose of establishing this unit was the end-of-life care of patients with incurable cancer, and approximately 90% of the patients who were admitted to this unit died. Since chemotherapy provided on an outpatient basis was passive, the management of devastating symptoms was performed in an outpatient setting, and home care became the preferred option for many cancer patients. Therefore, to construct a regional palliative care system, a coordinated approach to palliative care was needed. Hence, in 2007, many changes were brought about in the palliative care service in order to support the patients, their families, and the family physicians providing home care.
Routine Activities
1. Palliative care unit
This unit is the only designated inpatient unit for palliative care in the Toukatu-Hokubu region. Before 2007, a registry system was adopted fro admission of patients, and patients were admitted in the order of application. This system was abolished because in this system, patients with severe symptoms had to wait for a prolonged period of time for gaining admission. Therefore, the criteria for admission of patients were changed to ensure optimal usage of this limited resource and thus provide appropriate care to patients with severe physical symptoms and psychological problems. Between January 2007 and December 2007, a total of 359 patients were admitted to this unit.
2. Outpatient clinic
In 2007, an outpatient clinic was opened for the assessment and management of patients with devastating symptoms; this clinic remains open 5 days a week and cooperates with the Psycho-oncology Division to provide complete care to patients and their family members. The number of new referrals to this outpatient clinic was 397, and 81 were cancer survivors or were receiving anticancer therapy.
● H. Kinoshita ●
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