KOCHI: Prioritizing patients under palliative care and their well-being, the Ernakulam General Hospital has come up with a 100-day project, Anugaami-healing together, to treat patients with chronic ulcers.
Around 100 volunteers, including students from the Ernakulam Government School of Nursing, have been trained to assist the doctors and palliative care staff in the project aimed at curing chronic ulcer patients.
“The pain and palliative department of the hospital already provides home care for around 600 patients. We are not able to visit them as frequently as required. So we have trained some volunteers to fill the gap. However, we have around 52 chronic ulcer patients who require more attention and care. The 100-day program has been launched to cure at least 20% of the ulcer patients and to ensure at least 40% reduction in ulcer size,” said Dr Shahir Shah, the superintendent of the Ernakulam General Hospital.
“Palliative care was one of the several projects we launched to celebrate the centenary of the nursing school. A team of two students will be visiting patients as part of the Anugaami project,” said Geetha P C, principal of the Ernakulam Government School of Nursing.
Dr Shahir said that the initiative aims to ensure that no chronic ulcer patient is neglected. “There are different types of ulcers like pressure ulcers, cancer ulcers, diabetic ulcers, etc. The patients require weekly sugar checkups, testing, position changing in two hours, etc. The plan is to employ more skilled staff, health workers and volunteers to visit their house and heal them,” he said.