The administration of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA) created this Wednesday the first Intra-Hospital Pediatric Palliative Care Support Team, aimed at accompanying terminally ill children and supporting their families.
The decision was taken today by the board of directors of the Algarve hospital center and also served to mark the International Day of Children with Cancer, which is celebrated on February 15, said the CHUA in a statement.
According to the CHUA, the measure is a step in an “all children’s struggle” to “provide them with comprehensive access to this follow-up care” when they are terminally ill.
The same source informed that the team will have a “multidisciplinary” character and will work in “two poles”, one in Faro and the other in Portimão, where two of the main units managed by CHUA are located. CHUA is also responsible for the Lagos hospital and the Basic Emergency Services of Albufeira, Loulé and Vila Real de Santo António.
The team’s main mission is to “decentralize health care for these children with palliative care needs,” also providing such care to patients “at home,” clarified the CHUA.
The president of CHUA’s board of directors, Ana Varges Gomes, considered that the team represents an “added value”, by allowing “to accompany patients, who are unfortunately in the terminal phase of their disease, with dignity, supporting parents, families, and children.
“From now on we will be able to count on that support,” said the president of the board of directors of the Algarve hospital center, quoted in the statement
Pediatrician Elsa Rocha, responsible for the creation of the team, recalled that there are “8,000 children in Portugal with palliative care needs” and “only 10% have access to this care.
Algarve Hospital Center creates palliative care team for terminally ill children
According to CHUA, the measure is a step in an “all children’s struggle” to “provide them with comprehensive access to this follow-up care” when they are terminally ill
The administration of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA) created this Wednesday the first Intra-Hospital Pediatric Palliative Care Support Team, aimed at accompanying terminally ill children and supporting their families.
The decision was taken today by the board of directors of the Algarve hospital center and also served to mark the International Day of Children with Cancer, which is celebrated on February 15, said the CHUA in a statement.
According to the CHUA, the measure is a step in an “all children’s struggle” to “provide them with comprehensive access to this follow-up care” when they are terminally ill.
The same source informed that the team will have a “multidisciplinary” character and will work in “two poles”, one in Faro and the other in Portimão, where two of the main units managed by CHUA are located. CHUA is also responsible for the Lagos hospital and the Basic Emergency Services of Albufeira, Loulé and Vila Real de Santo António.
The team’s main mission is to “decentralize health care for these children with palliative care needs,” also providing such care to patients “at home,” clarified the CHUA.
The president of CHUA’s board of directors, Ana Varges Gomes, considered that the team represents an “added value”, by allowing “to accompany patients, who are unfortunately in the terminal phase of their disease, with dignity, supporting parents, families, and children.
“From now on we will be able to count on that support,” said the president of the board of directors of the Algarve hospital center, quoted in the statement
Pediatrician Elsa Rocha, responsible for the creation of the team, recalled that there are “8,000 children in Portugal with palliative care needs” and “only 10% have access to this care.
The same source stressed that “there are five teams in the country” that do this work and the creation of one in the Algarve gives the children of the region “the same right as the others” to benefit from this response in the area of pediatric palliative care.
The CHUA also announced that, “to mark the International Day of Children with Cancer”, the hospital’s Pediatrics Department has promoted an exhibition on the subject, which is “displayed in the hall of the Faro Hospital Unit”.
The International Day of Children with Cancer is marked every year on February 15 and aims, according to the European Union Information Centre, to educate civil society about “the challenges that children and young people and their families face” during the illness and to “raise awareness of the importance of easy and universal access to health care worldwide.
