Conference Programme
Thursday 27 April
| Auditorium | Room A | Room B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07:30- 08:30 | Registration | ||
| 12h30 – 13h30 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch |
| 13h30 – 17h00 | Integrating palliative care into the ICU setting | The law, ethics, and shared decision-making in children’s palliative care | Providing dignity and relief from suffering at the end of life |
Workshop Descriptions
Morning workshops: 09h00 - 12h30
Management of complex pain in the palliative care setting: increasing our armamentarium
Moderator: PALPRAC
This interactive workshop will teach on the use of methadone, ketamine and interventional pain management for patients with complex pain in the palliative care setting. The workshop will also include discussion around the concept of total pain requiring an holistic approach, ethics, communications skills and concerns around misuse of opioids.
Managing children's total pain and distressing symptoms through whole-person care
Moderator: PatchSA
Led by Justin Baker, MD, Chief of the Quality of Life and Palliative Care Division; Director of the Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
The workshop will focus on the value of addressing the whole patient when treating pain and symptoms by using both pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies and treatments. It will speak to the need of a more integrative approach to pain and symptom management and the role of therapists on a care team.
Home based palliative care
Moderator: HPCA
Home Based Palliative Care (HBPC) is preferable for multiple reasons, including:
- There is increasing demands of curable conditions on existing institutional care so beds in hospitals are in high demand.
- Worldwide studies have shown that home-based care (HBC) promotes healing in the comfort of the patient’s home, reinforces and supplements care from the patient’s family and friends.
- HBPC reduces unnecessary hospitalisations and expenditures on medications and interventions that are ineffective and may result in needless suffering.
- It is the most cost-effective way to provide palliative care. Research undertaken by the South African Medical Research Council shows that the public health sector would save approximately R2.5 billion per annum if only 50% of the patients who need Palliative Care were cared for at home. Applying the same modelling to the private healthcare sector, it is estimated that Home Based Palliative Care would save medical schemes an estimated R432 million per annum (Medical Research Council. June 2017).
All stakeholders therefore stand to benefit significantly from HBPC. Currently 94% of the care that HPCA’s 90 members across the country provide is home-based, making hospices the leading provider of HBPC nationally. In this workshop we will explore how we can work together to secure the continuum of care for palliative patients, as well as how the HBPC model could be adopted in public and private health care settings.
Afternoon workshops: 13h30- 17h00
Integrating palliative care into the ICU setting
Moderator: PALPRAC
The Covid19 pandemic has clearly identified the need for the integration of a palliative care approach and/or services into the ICU setting. This interactive worskhop will cover the following topics: Ventilation settings in the ICU/palliative care and organ donation context Medication algorithms for palliative care scenarios and organ donation context Communication and Family intervention Organ donation in the context of brain death and circulatory death Legal and Ethical considerations in the ICU/palliative care and organ donation context
The law, ethics and shared decision making in children’s palliative care
Moderator: PatchSA
This workshop will give clear guidance on South African law as it pertains to the care of children with palliative care needs as well as how to ensure ethical and shared decision making where the patient (if possible) and carers are included in the process.
Providing dignity and relief from suffering at the end of life
Moderator: HPCA
The goal of care at the end of life is to provide dignity and relief from suffering at the end of life which unites us all in the palliative care sector. Debate rages in some quarters about the best means of facilitating this goal, particularly in instances where suffering is immense and cannot be alleviated. With reference to selected patient case studies, this workshop, moderated by HPCA, we will explore the options for achieving the above goal (including euthanasia) in a manner that promotes insight, shared learning and collaboration.