Palliative care “a symbol of social progress” – Shanghai official

Categories: Uncategorized.

According to a press release from the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission, the authorities will establish an initial network of services before the end of the year and roll this out across the city within three years.

Speaking at an industry symposium, Xu Su, deputy inspector of the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission, said: “Access to palliative care should be seen as a human right for everyone. We hope that through palliative care we can help to relieve not only people’s physical pain, but also their psychological suffering.”

Hu Qingli, the former deputy director-general of the World Health Organization, told the symposium that palliative care is a “world issue that is very pressing in Shanghai, which has the most serious ageing problem in China.”

There are currently more than 81,000 very elderly and terminally ill people in Shanghai who are in need of palliative care. Many of them are suffering from cancer, which claimed 3.7 million lives last year, and can cause sufferers enormous pain.

While palliative care is still a new concept in China, Xu was keen to point out its suitability for the terminally ill. Not least from an economic point of view: “The average medical costs incurred by the people who used palliative care beds last year was less than 5,500 yuan (US$880), while the daily bed cost was 180 yuan, or less than a fifth of the cost of a standard hospital bed,” he said.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *