BHUBANESWAR: Every time city-based anaesthesiologist Dr Mami Parija meets a cancer patient in the advanced stages before and after a surgery, the questions she faces are if the disease will ever spare them and if their suffering can be reduced.
While she has no reply for the first question, her initiative - Amrit Dhara - addresses the second query by alleviating the suffering of both cancer patients in need and their families through free palliative care.
The initiative that took roots almost a decade back, is today providing comprehensive medical assessment, and managing issues associated with pain, psychological distress, spiritual and social needs, to patients and their families, in Bhubaneswar and other parts of the state. It has touched lives of more than 800 families where cancer has either affected or claimed the life of one family member.
Diagnosis of a young mother’s suffering from cancer in 2014 prompted Dr Parija to lay the foundation of Amrit Dhara’s journey. The anaesthesiologist who was working in a corporate hospital then, came across the 34-year-old woman who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and was planned for a surgery. After diagnostic laparoscopy, it was found to be in an advanced stage, widespread inside the abdomen. So, doctors had to abandon the procedure and the message was passed to the family in a second that nothing can be done in her case.
“Later I found out that she was operated on in some local nursing home hospital and died in much agony a few months later,” she said. This was the deciding point for Dr Parija to do something to address such an issue and Amrit Dhara was born five years later. The main objective is to provide palliative care services to cancer patients and their families in a much compassionate way.
“People do not realise that even if a cancer patient is terminally ill, he or she is not dying on that day. This is why I decided to start Amrit Dhara to extend palliative care to the patients and also provide counselling support to their families and attendants, both free of cost,” she added.
The initiative is funded entirely by Dr Parija’s family and friends and operates from a space donated by her friend Namrata Rath. Currently, Amrit Dhara operates two centres in Bhubaneswar - at Patia and Kalinga Nagar.
Dr Parija said the initiative’s services include daycare beds for treating severe pain, intractable vomiting, breathing difficulties, dressing cancer wounds and other procedures. It has a pharmacy and license to dispense morphine. “Our nurses do follow-up calls, and if patients can’t come to us, we try to go to them,” she said.
Palliative care, she added, is gaining momentum among healthcare professionals but timely integration in cancer care which is the key to reduce suffering, is yet to happen. “Patients are referred to us at a very late stage with severe pain and other intractable symptoms. Because it is associated with imminent end of life, people are scared when referred to palliative care. But the care they receive at the comfort of their homes, is a welcome surprise,” said the anaesthesiologist.
Volunteers play an important role too. While Amrit Dhara’s team provide palliative care to cancer patients through either daycare or home visits including pain management, assisting in medication and counselling, volunteers assist in extending psychosocial spiritual support.