What exactly is palliative and supportive care?
Palliative care and supportive care we mean care that is focused on improving the quality of life of people with life-threatening illness. So make sure people who do not get better. With palliative care, we try to alleviate suffering, not only by controlling pain and other symptoms, but also by social, psychological and spiritual support. Palliative care can sometimes early in the disease process are required, so it is not only focused on the last days or weeks of life. People often think in palliative care to cancer pain control, but it's so much more than that. Palliative care / supportive care is very broad, looking at a lot of different problems simultaneously, working with people from different disciplines and there is next to people with cancer, for example, people with COPD, dementia, heart failure or neurological disorders.
Maastricht UMC + has a special consultation team for palliative / supportive care
The Consultation Team Palliative Care / supportive care advises doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals who deal with patients in the last phase of life. Sometimes a doctor will not get the pain or nausea, for example, well under control, or the fear of a patient particularly large. The doctor or nurse may ask the advice of the specialists of the Consultation Team. To advise the good people of the Consultation Team meet whenever necessary at the bedside of the patient - at home, in hospital, nursing home or hospice. The consultants have the time to do that is important. Carers are not forgetting. If those problems, we note that in our opinion. We do not take care about but ask doctors and nurses to provide better care.
The Consultation Team
The consultation team consists of a number of doctors, nurses, social workers and a coordinator. If necessary, they can consult other experts within and outside the azM as a pharmacist, psychiatrist, psychologist, cardiologist, nurse specialists, etc.
Can a patient also self enlist the help of the Consultation Team Palliative Care?
"No, but a patient may have to switch. His GP, specialist or nurse ask the Consultation Team ' The private doctor continues hoofdbehandelaar and the team looks to him or her.
Does it cost me money that consultation?
No, you do not own contribution.