Palliative care : fourth report of session 2003-04 / Health Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee.
Date:
2004
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Palliative care : fourth report of session 2003-04 / Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    perceived to be receptive—to other faiths and cultures. Rashid Gatrad, in an article in the British Medical Journal, illustrated some of the cultural barriers in this area: No effective national provisions are in place for training of healthcare professionals in transcultural medicine, and few professionals will therefore have had any real opportunity to learn about death rites in different cultures. Why is it that a middle- aged Muslim daughter insists on maintaining a day and night hospital vigil of her dying mother? Or why is it that Hindu parents wish their terminally ill child to die as close to the floor as possible? The importance of these and other rites of passage needs to be understood by caregivers.” 73. Dr Wiles, for the Association of Palliative Medicine, suggested that the problem lay not so much in the attitudes of hospices themselves but in the way they were perceived: Having worked in St Joseph’s, St Catharine’s and St Christopher’s, there are connotations with religion and hospice work. To be fair I do not think it has impacted on what the patients received. I worked in St Joseph’s, which is a highly Catholic founded organisation, and I think the patients were offered the same [treatment] regardless of their faith, but I am sure that their perception is that it is different and you have to comply or conform, and we have not reached out to the non-religious, the atheists or other religions ... you only have to look in the hospice directory at the names of saints ...”*° 74. Tom Hughes-Hallett for Marie Curie Cancer Care was, however, anxious to dispel the idea that hospices were merely “a collection of bodies full of very well-meaning and excellent nuns”.*’ None of their hospices was named after a saint, and their newest was in Bradford. The family room in that hospice, normally used by a few friends and relatives, had recently accommodated 250 people who came to grieve for an Asian woman who had died. 75. The Department is currently funding a study in Warwickshire to address how inequalities relating to ethnicity in palliative care services can be addressed.*’ Melanie Johnson also told us that the Department was issuing grants to organisations such as the Policy Research Institute, Cancer Equality and Cancer Black Care to look at ways of overcoming some of the social barriers in place.*’ While there were some very good examples of specialist palliative care in respect of black and minority ethnic users, the difficulty was in mainstreaming best practice.™ 76. We received evidence from the New Opportunities Fund (which distributes money from the National Lottery to those at the greatest disadvantage in society) that demonstrated that its Community Fund has given substantial awards of money to a 79 80 81 82 83 84 “Palliative care needs of minorities: understanding their needs is key”, British Medical Journal, 26 July 2003, vol 327 pp 176-77 Q117 Q118 See www.dh.gov.uk Q304 Q304