My Care My Right

We are born, we do our best to live a meaningful life, we die. Death is hard, but living in constant pain waiting for death is even harder. Accepting the inevitable is the first step to make physical and mental journey towards oblivion bearable.

Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness. It can provide relief of suffering by means of early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other problems: physical, psycho-social and spiritual.

Around a million people die in Bangladesh every year where approximately 0.6 million are estimated in need of palliative care. However, being a developing nation where hunger and regular healthcare are pressing issues, the concept of palliative care for terminally ill is hard to grasp for many. According to ‘The 2015 Quality of Death Index’, a study conducted by Economist Intelligence Unit, Bangladesh scored 14.1 out of a possible 100 and is second from the bottom in terms of availability, affordability and quality of palliative care available to adults across 80 countries surveyed.

Movements seeking right for all to have palliative care and humane death are slowly gaining momentum in Bangladesh. A few initiatives have been taken by public and private sectors to make basic palliative care service available to people who need it the most.