Organiser: Paliaclinic Foundation.
Collaborating organisations: Ramon Molinas Foundation, Institut Català de la Salut, Mutuam, Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili, Parc de Salut Mar, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and Blauclinic.
Dates of implementation: 01/01/2022 – 31/12/2022.
A project to cope with the end-of-life process at home, with dignity
For the tenth consecutive year, the Ramon Molinas Foundation is collaborating with the Home care programme for patients with social needs at the final stage of life. Created by the Paliaclinic Foundation with the support of the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS), the programme aims to help and support socioeconomically vulnerable patients at their final stage of life, and their families, so that they are able to cope with the process with dignity and in their own homes.
The scheme, created in the year 2001, enables support and care to be carried out in the beneficiaries’ own homes and ensures that the end-of-life process can be affronted with dignity, with as little suffering as possible and in the company wished for by the patient. The Paliaclinic Foundation provides material and logistical help to patients, derived from different levels of ICS public care, over a limited period. The programme provides help quickly. The scheme starts the moment that the patient’s needs are determined and does not finish until the patient’s death, or until public services take over after carrying out the relevant administrative procedures.
The Home care programme for patients with social needs at the final stage of life is present in the areas of Barcelona Dreta, Muntanya, Litoral Mar and Barcelona Esquerra.
Technical and emotional support so that patients feel supported, loved and respected
The Paliaclinic Foundation provides the part-time help of a social worker who takes responsibility for the basic care of the patients. They also ensure patient comfort by providing assistive devices; among others, the organisation lends special mattresses to patients who have to spend long periods of time in bed, mobile cranes, adjustable beds or wheelchairs.
During this process, emotional support is very important. Patients need to feel supported, loved and respected in order to feel human until the very end. For this reason, the organisation offers emotional support so that the patient and their family are able to cope with the emotional suffering which often occurs after the diagnosis of incurable illnesses.
All these actions are carried out with complementary treatments of emotional support such as art therapy or music therapy. Art therapy is a hugely effective therapeutic tool in the end-of-life stage which uses techniques such as drawing, painting and handicrafts, among others, with the aim of easing the communication and management of emotional distress. Music therapy, like art therapy, is a non-verbal therapy which uses music as the base to open up channels of communication and improve quality of life at these final stages.
The Paliaclinic Foundation, an organisation which dignifies death as it dignifies life
The Paliaclinic Foundation was born in 2008 thanks to the efforts of a group of people particularly interested in the methods of palliative care and what it should provide at the final stages of life. The organisation is conscious of the many needs of families that experience these circumstances, and of the importance of defending the rights of the patients and those accompanying them in order to dignify their lives until their last breath.
Volunteer training is one of the pillars of the Paliaclinic Foundation. The organisation has a team of trained volunteers committed to the project, who collaborate with the tasks promoted by the foundation. In addition, the Paliaclinic Foundation carries out the tasks of raising awareness and understanding about the processes of the final stages of life, with the aim that society becomes conscious of the possibilities of experiencing this process in a different way.
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