The paediatric palliative & supportive Care Unit of Bai Jerbai Wadia Hospital for Children is a multidisciplinary department fully integrated in a tertiary paediatric multispecialty hospital in Mumbai, India. Founded in May 2019, it has reached out to 2,800 children and families till date. In-patient and OPD services expanded to home care in 2022 under Titli Home Care (Titli means butterfly in Hindi).
In 2023, its founder and head Dr. Veronique Dinand joined the programme of the Children’s Palliative Care Leadership Institute, by St. Jude Global and Sunflower Children’s Network. With the help of eminent international and national faculty, her leadership project entitled “Creation of a second paediatric palliative home care team catering to children referred from Wadia hospital and other institutions.” It aimed at reaching out to children with life-limiting or life-threatening illnesses requiring home-based palliative care across Mumbai and periphery, by accepting referrals from other hospitals and institutions that cannot offer home-care themselves.
The methods used were the creation of a 2nd Home Care team (Palliative Care Physician, Nurse and Home Care Coordinator), writing standard operating procedures for the registration of outside referrals, creating a brochure, and promoting Titli Home Care services in some of Mumbai government hospitals and adult Home Care providers.
As a result of those activities, referrals from outside hospitals have started, the number of home visits increased from 111 (Jan-March 24) to 261 (Apr-June 24); the number of days when home visits were done increased from 16 days (Jan-March) to 20 days a month (Apr-June), with 1 or 2 teams out of the hospital at a given time point.
The second phase of the project is ongoing: knowledge dissemination by lectures about Paediatric Palliative Care and home care in hospitals and circulation of Titli Home Care brochure.
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