Background. Despite the development of this form of activity around the world, there are still only two hospital palliative care supportive teams in Poland: in Bydgoszcz and in Warsaw. The study was aimed at demonstrating the need for the formation and development of supportive teams in emergency care hospitals in Poland.
Methods. Analysis of documents (disease records) of patients under the care of the Palliative Care Support Team at the University Hospital, Bydgoszcz, in 2002-2004, 2005 and 2006.
Results. Between 2002-2006, the Palliative care support team in Bydgoszcz provided a total of 1,441 consultations, including 807 consultations by doctors and 634 consultations by nurses. The total number of examined patients involved 372 persons. The mean age of treated women was 67.27 years and the mean age of treated men was 64.74 years. Most of the patients suffered from tumours (78.49%), although every year the proportion of patients with non-neoplastic diseases (17.20%) demonstrated an increasing tendency. The main reason for the care requests involved a lack of satisfactory treatment of pain (54.57%). The patients were referred primarily by surgical wards (36.4%). Approximately 10% of the patients under the care of the supportive team died in hospital.
Conclusions. The results confirmed the need to form palliative care supportive teams as every year there is an increase in the number of requests for consultation and an increase in the number of patients. The supportive team was shown to play an important role in symptomatic care, in providing appropriate care for patients dying in hospital, in educating the patients, their families and the medical staff.