Palliative care in hospital

The best option for palliative care in a hospital is a special palliative ward. Special features of the palliative ward are the smaller number of beds and the better equipment with doctors and nursing staff. Admission to the palliative ward is possible if the patient is suffering from an incurable disease that will lead to death in the foreseeable future and is currently suffering from significant symptoms and limitations of quality of life due to the physical situation.

Patients must agree that they will no longer be treated with the aim of prolonging their lives. The main goal of palliative medical treatment in hospital is to control and alleviate symptoms of the disease. Long-term treatment is not possible, the aim is to return the patients to their homes or to a hospice, for example.

Admission to the palliative ward is done by the hospitalization of the family doctor, the costs are covered by the respective health insurance. But palliative medical treatment is also possible on a “normal” hospital ward: a specially trained team consisting of doctors, nurses and other professional groups (e.g. pastoral care, physiotherapist, social workers, etc.) supports the ward team in caring for terminally ill patients.

Palliative care in the hospice

The aim of the hospice movement, just like the aim of palliative care, is the comprehensive care of terminally ill and dying patients in the last phase of the illness and the preservation of the highest possible quality of life. Hospices can be organized as inpatient (with overnight stays) or outpatient (as a kind of day clinic) and work very closely with palliative medical institutions and physicians (e.g. family doctors trained in palliative medicine), who support the hospice team through regular home visits. They are also the ones who determine the palliative medical treatment plan and discuss it with the patients and their relatives.The rooms in the hospice are bright and friendly and may also have a garden.

The team consists of trained nursing staff and volunteer hospice helpers, who have also completed special training. The daily routine in the hospice does not follow a fixed rhythm, but attempts are made to orient itself to the wishes and needs of the residents. The goal of hospice care is to preserve the dignity of the dying patient and to recognize dying as a part of life by openly dealing with the topics “dying” and “death” and thus to cope with the dying process.