A joint community project for palliative care

1. Why do 5 clubs from 5 countries organize a joint project?

In June, 4-6 2004, the first Rotary International Club Meeting (RIC) took place in Rotselaar (Belgium). Five Rotary clubs from different countries were present: RC Nieuwkoop (The Netherlands), RC High Suffolk (France), RC Le Vésinet (France), RC Rotselaar (Belgium) and RC Leipzig (Germany). They succeeded in founding an institutional bond of friendship. From this moment on, such a RIC meeting will be organized every year by one of the five participating clubs. The next meeting will be in Leipzig, at the beginning of June 2005.
 

All participants in front of the city hall of Leuven

The major goals of the weekend were:
 

• Improvement of international contacts between connected clubs
• Learning about the local region
• Creation of a forum for official contacts
• Exchange of information among the clubs
• Establishing long lasting personal contacts

The presidents with fanions 
 

The charter of the RIC community

In order to strengthen the spirit of Rotary, we planned to link every RIC meeting with a specific community project, organized by the respective hosting club and supported by the connected clubs. During the meeting, all participants have a chance to learn more about the project and to gather with contact persons of the community project.

This year, RC Rotselaar decided to support an organization, which is very active in palliative care. Every club was asked to give 1.000,00 €. With a total of 5.000,00 € at their disposal, the members of RC Rotselaar now even try to improve such a nice result by applying for a Matching Grant.

2. Why is this project necessary?

At the moment the diagnosis ‘incurable’ is made and doctors cannot offer anymore help, the care for a deadly ill person does not end immediately. On the contrary, in these extremely difficult moments palliative care can be of invaluable importance for a patient and his close family.

Palliative care is an active and total care for people who are incurably ill. The length of the life perspective is not a goal on itself. The most important issue is essential pain- and symptom control, combined with professional attention for the psychological, social and spiritual needs of each patient and the people around him. The main objective is thus to provide an optimal quality of life for the patient and his surroundings until the very hour, he or she will decease in a serene atmosphere.

Within the Leuven/Rotselaar area with its 450.000 inhabitants, an organization, called PANAL, takes this responsibility. PANAL is in essence a team of home nursing staff with the mission to support palliative patients who want to spend their last days/weeks in a familiar environment and who prefer to die peacefully at home rather than in the ‘sterile‘ atmosphere of a hospital. In order to achieve this mission in a professional way, the team does not only consist of trained nurses-confidantes (PANAL nurses), but also of a specialized doctor and a psychologist. 
 

The PANAL team at the briefing

The PANAL support team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, in order to cope with urgent patient situations. They have about 400 patients per year and about 50 people under permanent care. All help is offered gratis, completely free of charge. This is why Rotary needs to help.
 
 

 Syringe driver
 

The PANAL home nurses discuss the situation at hand with all persons concerned and advise them on all typical aspects of palliative care, e.g., they provide expert advise on pain treatment at the patients’ home or home replacing residence, they help to bring more comfort to patients who sometimes suffer very annoying symptoms (vomiting, nausea, stomach, deglutition problems, dyspnoea, …).
In addition, all kinds of advice and information about specific tools (pain killing pumps, etc.) are given, options for getting the special (expensive) equipment on temporary loan are checked carefully.

Not only the physical care sometimes needs very specific advice.  Psychological and moral support for the patient and his home care environment need permanent attention as well, as many questions suddenly arise in these difficult moments. How to cope with strong emotions like fear, hope, depression? How to handle the relation between a patient and his family/relatives, if one party refuses to discuss the disease (and the inevitable consequences), while the other wants to talk it through?

In addition to the visits, PANAL twice a year organizes commemoration services, where the families of deceased patients are invited to remember the decease of their beloved relative in an intimate atmosphere of music, reflective texts and rituals.

The wages of the team are financed by the government, but PANAL depends on gifts and donations for the purchase of the required material. Therefore, the support of our Rotary Clubs and Rotary International is really necessary and it surely helps the needs of the local community. 
 3. Some remarks on specific budget items

1. The “tempurmatras” (tempurpedic mattress) helps to prevent “bedsores” of patients who lost a lot of weight or patients who has to stay in bed most of the time. The additional carrier bags for the tempurpedic mattress are for the mattresses being still in use. 

2. The portable computer would be extremely important to enhance the information management of patient data between different staff members who are responsible for the same patient, especially at the weekend shifts when the shifts are rotating.  At Monday the data will be synchronized with the data available in the computer at the office.

3. Books supporting grief and mourning: basic information for children and youngsters who lost a close relative; information for adults about the most frequently asked questions by children about death and dying; remembrance book for children to help them cope with their loss; a ‘to do’-book for children from 12-18 years : they can write memories, about their feelings,… 

4. The Mourning case: contains toys, books and games for little children (6-12) and adolescents (12-18); books for adults, different ‘to do’-books and remembrance books, brochures, dolls,  sorrowcards, suggestions for literature and music, …..

5. The syringe driver permits the patients to get medication subcutaniously on a 24hours a day basis.  It contains medication against pain and/or other symptoms.  Abuse is excluded by a safety mechanism.
 
 

Contactpersoon

Helge Pfeiffer