Department of Palliative Medicine | Palliative Care & Treatments

Palliative care, also increasingly known as supportive care, is a holistic approach to caring for anyone diagnosed with a serious illness such as cancer or other organ failures, to allow them to live as well as they can, for as long as they can.

Having a serious illness can be overwhelming for both patients and their families. Supportive and palliative care looks at the impact of the illness on you and your loved ones, and addresses a broad range of issues by integrating your goals, values, preferences and specific needs into your care. Importantly, it strives to optimise your quality of life by:

Preventing and addressing any physical symptoms which may arise during this serious illness, including treatment side effects
Offering support and resources to help you and your loved ones deal with emotions which come inevitably with the diagnosis and treatment of the serious illness
Providing informative advice and resources to help with practical aspects of your care

Our Clinical Services

The SKH Palliative Medicine Service provides specialised consultative services to patients living with serious or life-threatening illness. Our team of physicians and specialty nurses are focused on improving the quality of life for patients and their families—providing relief from the symptoms, pain and stresses of a serious illness or treatment-related symptoms.

Our team works closely with other clinical care teams to provide an additional layer of specialised support. We provide an inpatient consult service and specialist outpatient clinic service. In addition, we work closely with our community partners to ensure smooth transition of care from hospital to the community.

The direct aspects of our care include:

Prevention and management of pain and other symptoms (e.g. shortness of breath, loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting, etc.) related to serious illness and its treatments
Patient and family/caregiver education
Emotional, psychological, and spiritual support
Care and discharge planning
End-of-life and bereavement care

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