In the first quarter of this year 336 people have requested this care subject in private centers in Navarra. Of these, nearly 75% have been attended by the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Pamplona (94 admissions to its Hospital Unit and 157 through home support) and the remaining 25% have gone to the Clínica Universidad de Navarra.

Last year, the Hospital San Juan de Dios treated 493 admissions at the center and offered home care to 674 patients at attendance . The Clinic was visited by 200 patients from different parts of Spain and abroad. This subject care is increasingly in demand, being a growing trend that, so far this year, has already reached 25% of patients attended in 2013.

The different care required by a terminally ill patient and his or her family in a hospital center and at home was discussed at the University of Navarra's NursingSchool . Fifty nurses attended this training session, organized by the Master's Degree in Palliative Care Nursing, which was attended by Gema Escalada, social worker at the Hospital San Juan de Dios in Pamplona, and nurses Ana Belén Ochoa, from Palliative Care at the Hospital San Juan de Dios in Pamplona, and Julia Urdiroz, from Palliative Medicine at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra.

Beyond medical treatment of the patient

The experts agreed that palliative care for the patient and their families requires "comprehensive care". According to Escalada, the objectives of the social work in palliative care range from"attending to the needs partner-familiestriggered or worsened by the status of serious or terminal illness", to other more specific ones such as "supporting family organization and mediating in their conflicts, intervening in emotional and communication problems and advising on the management of information for vulnerable family members, such as minors or the elderly".

Ochoa focused her intervention on palliative care at home. According to the expert,"at home the family takes on a much greater relevance", since it faces a double challenge:"satisfying the physical and emotional needs of the patient and maintaining family functioning as normally as possible". In the face of the uncertainty that the disease creates, both in the patient and in the family, Ochoa insists that professionals also "must give caregivers a good health care Education so that they know how to deal with the care of the patient in all areas".

Urdiroz pointed out the added complexity of this care at Clínica Universidad de Navarra, where patients come from different parts of Spain and abroad. This, according to the expert, also makes them the "socialnetwork " of the patient: "because of the distance from their relatives, we end up becoming their friends". Based on her nine years of experience in the clinic's Palliative Medicine team, Urdiroz summarized that caring for the patient and his or her family goes beyond the patient's medical treatment: "The families always thank you for the support, the close attention , the financial aid and the affection you give them", which, according to them, "makes their day-to-day life easier".