Bahiana Saúde offers Teaching-Assistance Outpatient Clinic in Palliative Care

Humanized care aimed at people diagnosed with a serious, progressive and suffering-causing disease, such as cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), heart failure, among others. This is the Palliative Care Outpatient Clinic at Bahiana Health, teaching-assistance front of the Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública. The space also offers support to family members and caregivers, through a multidisciplinary team made up of doctors, nurses and a psychologist.

The outpatient clinic serves SUS patients, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, at the Centro Médico da Bahiana, on campus Brotas. "It is important to emphasize that, today, palliative care serves people affected by all diseases that cause suffering. In the case, for example, of people with neurodegenerative diseases, we assist in important decisions, such as the adoption of artificial nutrition (through probe), breathing through a tracheostomy, etc.", explains the intensive care physician and service coordinator, Dr. Sílber Alves. He emphasizes that care for the family (and/or caregiver) goes from the beginning of the diagnosis, until the end of the patient's life. "The disease is not our main focus. Our objective is the person, it is the family. So, they can come at any time during the diagnosis. Whether at the beginning, in the middle of treatment or, in the case of family members, in mourning. If a family is mourning a loss, it's a reason to come to us", points out Alves.

Although similar services already exist in Salvador, the coordinator of the Palliative Care Outpatient Clinic at Bahiana highlights the inclusion of students in the service as the main difference. "No other service in the city has such robust participation of students. They follow the consultations via video (with the authorization of patients and families) and, inside the office, two students follow the service to learn communication techniques and the approach to palliative care Our difference in teaching is to propagate the culture of palliative care in the professionals we are training at the University. Bahiana", he concludes.