1. Palliative care provision at a tertiary cancer center during a global pandemic
- Author
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Christopher G. Blake, Breffni Hannon, Subrata Banerjee, Warren Lewin, Jenny Lau, Ahmed Al Awamer, Camilla Zimmermann, Brenda I. O’Connor, Ebru Kaya, Alexandra Saltman, and Ernie Mak
- Subjects
Advance care planning ,Canada ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Palliative care ,Pain medicine ,Tertiary Care Centers ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Neoplasms ,Pandemic ,medicine ,Humans ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Pandemics ,Cancer ,Service (business) ,SARS-CoV-2 ,business.industry ,Risk of infection ,Nursing research ,Palliative Care ,COVID-19 ,medicine.disease ,Oncology ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Family medicine ,Original Article ,business ,Supportive care - Abstract
COVID-19 was first reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019; it rapidly spread around the world and was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. The palliative care program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada, provides comprehensive care to patients with advanced cancer and their families, through services including an acute palliative care unit, an inpatient consultation service, and an ambulatory palliative care clinic. In the face of a global pandemic, palliative care teams are uniquely placed to support patients with cancer who also have COVID-19. This may include managing severe symptoms such as dyspnea and agitation, as well as guiding advance care planning and goals of care conversations. In tandem, there is a need for palliative care teams to continue to provide care to patients with advanced cancer who are COVID-negative but who are at higher risk of infection and adverse outcomes related to COVID-19. This paper highlights the unique challenges faced by a palliative care team in terms of scaling up services in response to a global pandemic while simultaneously providing ongoing support to their patients with advanced cancer at a tertiary cancer center.
- Published
- 2020