Are patients with congestive heart failure entitled to receive palliative care?
Piotr Sobański
Advances in Palliative Medicine 2008;7(3):119-122.
open access
Vol 7, No 3 (2008)
Review articles
Published online: 2008-10-10
Abstract
When, in 1963, J.M. Hinton published his article on the suffering that accompanies dying, by no means did
he confine his observation to patients who suffered from oncological conditions. Quite the contrary, as in his
essay we can find an explicit statement which says that the suffering of patients dying from cardiac or renal
insufficiency is even greater than for patients in the terminal stages of cancer [1]. That article sparked off the
development of charitable organizations in Great Britain which took care of oncological patients. This was
the reason why palliative medicine was and still is associated with people dying from cancer. It has been
more than 50 years since the publication of Hilton's work and from that we have rediscovered the forgotten
part of the author's message and begun to realize that patients can ask for help not because of a particular
disease, but because of the suffering that accompanies his dying. Modern palliative medicine has developed
based on the care of oncological patients. For this reason, and despite the fact that the aim of this article is
to draw attention to non-oncological patients, we cannot avoid referring to the problems of patients with
cancer.
Abstract
When, in 1963, J.M. Hinton published his article on the suffering that accompanies dying, by no means did
he confine his observation to patients who suffered from oncological conditions. Quite the contrary, as in his
essay we can find an explicit statement which says that the suffering of patients dying from cardiac or renal
insufficiency is even greater than for patients in the terminal stages of cancer [1]. That article sparked off the
development of charitable organizations in Great Britain which took care of oncological patients. This was
the reason why palliative medicine was and still is associated with people dying from cancer. It has been
more than 50 years since the publication of Hilton's work and from that we have rediscovered the forgotten
part of the author's message and begun to realize that patients can ask for help not because of a particular
disease, but because of the suffering that accompanies his dying. Modern palliative medicine has developed
based on the care of oncological patients. For this reason, and despite the fact that the aim of this article is
to draw attention to non-oncological patients, we cannot avoid referring to the problems of patients with
cancer.
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