Palliative care

Our goal is to improve the quality of life of patients and their families who are facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems physical, psychosocial and spiritual.

The BCH palliative care clinic runs every week on a Friday, caring for our patients with cancer, end stage HIV and end stage chronic conditions such as heart failure.

Specifically we aim to:

Provide relief from pain and other distressing symptoms;

Affirm life and regard dying as a normal process;

Neither hasten or postpone death;

Integrate the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care;

Offer a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death;

Offer a support system to help the family cope during the patient’s illness and in their own bereavement;

Use a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated;