PALLIATIVE CARE IN ROMANIA: NEEDS AND RIGHTS

Palliative care is directed to maintenance of quality of life and to prevent and to relief suffering of those with a life-threatening disease. Palliative care does not only concern the patient, but also the quality of life of family members and it deals with physical symptoms as well as with psychosocial and spiritual problems. Palliative care is delivered by various disciplines like nursing, medicine and social work. The need for palliative care is increasing in the Western world, related with the ageing of the population. In Romania palliative care services did grow in the last decade, but still the number of services is not meeting the demands of patients in need for palliative care. General practitioners recognise the need for palliative care in Romania. Despite recommendations from the World Health Organisation and the Council of Europe expertise on palliative care, adequate services and information on palliative care are in shortage. The need for palliative care is still enormous from the patient's perspective, from the professional's perspective and from the human rights perspective. The right to have access to appropriate care is not realised yet in Romania for patients with life threatening diseases like cancer and dementia. Palliative care at home should be one of the priorities since most people want to die at home and family ties are still strong in Romania. Recently new initiatives may offer chances again for further improvement of palliative care services in Romania. Several questions have to be discussed and answered to ensure adequate palliative care services in the future. Such questions deal with issues like respect for values and beliefs of the individual patient, the right to decide on his own life and death, the right of information and the need for more expertise and knowledge in palliative care.