Alexis de la Fléchère / Photo credit: ALINE MORCILLO / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
While the end-of-life bill will be presented this Wednesday to the Council of Ministers, the government still wants to guarantee access to palliative care. 21 units will be created in departments which do not have them. In Bourges, in Cher, the city hospital is unable to provide these treatments.
More than an additional billion euros for palliative care over ten years. This is the government’s promise as the end-of-life bill is to be presented to the Council of Ministers this Wednesday. While the sensitive subject of assistance in dying will obviously be discussed, the government also wants to guarantee access to palliative care. 21 units will thus be created in departments which do not have any. In hospitals which do not have them – this is the case of that of Bourges in Cher – the lack is felt, because these units are precious.
“Sometimes forced to send patients two hours from home”
“Palliative care units have the specificity of welcoming people, either for situations involving complex care, or for illnesses that pose particular difficulties. I am thinking of Charcot disease, which we regularly talk about in the media,” explains thus from Europe 1, Doctor Anne-Claire Courau, specialized in palliative care, who also cites other examples: “It could be patients who have a tracheotomy, patients who have dressings which take a lot of time”.
So many treatments which, she insists, “require a lot of practice” and which the Bourges hospital cannot offer to its patients. “Today, we don’t quite have this equality. We are sometimes forced to send patients two hours from home, which is deeply unsatisfactory,” she concludes.