KOCHI: Death literacy, which includes the knowledge and skills needed to make informed decisions about end-of-life care and death, among the public should be improved, and it should be discussed along with palliative care at the panchayat level to bring about a solution, said
Dr M R Rajagopal, an anesthesiologist and one of the pioneers who took palliative care to the people. “While around 90% of artificial life support systems are withdrawn in Europe when a reasonable recovery is not possible and the end of life is certain, in India, it is still only 30 per cent. We are stretching death. The situation is growing, and the transition happened only in the last 25 years,” said Dr Rajagopal, chairman of Thiruvananthapuram-based Pallium India, a non-profit for palliative care.
The objective of end-of-life care is first and foremost for the person to be as comfortable and at peace as possible, he said at the eighth T K Ramachandran Memorial Lecture on ‘Insights on Death, Dying and Medical Directives’.
Citing the Supreme Court of India’s judgment in January 2023 on Living Will, he said that it is a common man’s protection against intensive torture, and only a few people are aware of the judgment. “When someone is at the end of their life, the worst thing we can do is suggest hospitals and doctors and recommend treatment. Unfortunately, it is very common now,” he said.
The T K Ramachandran Memorial Lecture Series is organised by Friends of TK, a collective of the late thought leader’s friends since 2015.