Medicines deal with diseases. But patients coping with pain or the loss of bodily functions need more rounded care to help them along. From administering morphine to providing compassion and empathy in periods of dark despair, palliative care is now being regarded as a specialty that cannot be ignored whether it is for cancer or strokes or crippling amputations and loss of bodily functions.
The challenge is to transform palliative care from being a boutique offering to integrating it with the main healthcare system.
The Telangana government has shown what is possible by opening palliative healthcare centres in each of. . .