On genocide, palliative care and enduring hope

One of the many reasons I love my current job is because of the amazing people I get to interact with on a daily basis.

When working in palliative care you meet people who are being pushed both physically and emotionally and it never ceases to amaze me how people respond to these challenges with humour, courage and most of all, hope. This is true for both patients and medical practitioners.

Today I feel really honoured to have received an article from Dr Christian Ntizimira from Rwanda that marks International Holocaust Memorial Day by looking at the challenges to providing palliative care in a post genocide society.

If you accept my observation that death can push people in conventional circumstances to their limits both emotionally and physically then it is a small step to observe that genocide has the potential to rip both people and society to shreds.

But what sets Dr Christian’s article apart is not the description of how people’s lives were ripped apart and how millions were killed of displaced but how, in the aftermath of such suffering, Dr Christian has chosen to draw out a narrative of hope and courage.

If I was to draw one thing from this last year of working for the African Palliative Care Association – and more generally with palliative care practitioners – it is this optimism in the face of adversity.

Whatever happens, however bad, palliative care offers a simple framework to be able to help. I have seen this in the care patients receive right up to their last breath and Dr Christian powerfully illustrates this point in his article on genocide and palliative care.

You can read Dr Christian’s article visiting ehospice by clicking here >>>