Barbados is to get its first Government provided hospice and palliative care facility for the terminally ill.
The health care facilities will be built at Coverley Estate, Christ Church, on the property occupied by the Coverly Great House.
The disclosure was made by Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance Dwight Sutherland yesterday when he led off debate in the House of Assembly on a resolution to vest 18.245.6 square metres of land at Coverley, Christ Church, to the National Housing Corporation for the development of 33 residential lots and the lease of the site at Coverley Great House for a hospice and palliative care facilities, the latter to occupy 7 922 square metres of the land.
Sutherland indicated that Government was acceding to a written request from the Barbados Association for Cancer Advocacy (BACA) made in 2022 proposing the use of the property which is now being leased.
He advised, however, that the existing structure which is in a state of disrepair, could not be utilised as requested by BACA and would be demolished to build a new palliative care facility.
According to Sutherland, Government would be supporting BACA in the operation of the facility, providing an annual subvention; narcotics for patients in the hospice; accessing pensioners’ pension payments when they are admitted to the hospice, ensuring the pensions were utilised to assist with the care of the elderly.
Government subsidies, he said, would also be paid to the hospice when patients are admitted, similar to what obtains for nursing homes.
“This programme that will be instituted at Coverley is aimed to ease pain and help with other problems of illness and those illnesses that might not be considered life-threatening, for example, kidney diseases, chronic NCDs, HIV and AIDs, or with the side effects of treatments,” Sutherland said.
It is predicted that by the year 2035, there will be 1 657 new cancer cases, with a resulting 858 cancer-related deaths. Sutherland said statistics such as these made the palliative care initiative a priority. He added that there was “a greater need to entrench palliative care within communities and not just at Coverley Great House”.
He shared excerpts from a World Health Organisation report from 2002, in which the organisation advocated the expansion of palliative care and urged member countries to incorporate palliative care services into their cancer control and chronic non-communicable diseases programme.
Sutherland said the report of a Barbados Palliative Care Needs Assessment Project of 2012 commissioned by the Ministry of Health, with work done by palliative care expert Dr Natalie Greaves, also recommended expanding community palliative care throughout the public health and NGO sectors, as well as the addition of a stand-alone palliative care facility at the tertiary level.
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