Cultural Challenges in Implementing Palliative Services in Turkey
Palliative Care is a set of approaches that aims to improve physical,
social and psychological well-being of both patient and the family.
PC should begin at diagnosis and continue throughout treatment till the end of life.
In Turkey, PC is at its infancy; the Pallia-Turk Project, to improve PC, has been
implemented by the Ministry of Health since 2010.
Turkish Ministry of Health has launched regulations on PC including both as a home care team and also hospitalization settlement in 2014. After these regulations, the number of PC units in Turkey has
increased significantly.
There is no certified PC specialization or resident program in Turkey
for physicians and no certification programmes for nurses.
However, PC education programs organized both by the Ministry of Health,
Middle East Cancer Consortium and international and national cancer congresses
by the oncology groups are encouraged in recent years.
For most of the families, “palliative care” means end-of-life care. Hence, the health staff in PC,
at first, should describe the mission and objective of PC both to the patients and to the families.
The second most important point is that, the health care professionals should be sensitive and
tolerable of various traditions or religious beliefs in order to meet the needs of patients and
families and ensure a “good death” and healthy bereavement.
Cultural Challenges in Implementing Palliative Services in Turkey
Palliat Med Hosp Care Open J. 2017; SE(1): S10-S14. doi: 10.17140/PMHCOJ-SE-1-103
