Editorial

The Malta Hospice Movement has held a one-day conference on "Caring for Persons with Cancer: The Current Situation in Malta". It was an intensive exercise with contributions by experts on a variety of topics related to an illness that is complex and demanding for the patient, the family, the doctors and medical staff treating the patient and for the Hospice Movement itself.

It was an exercise in which a highly qualified panel of speakers highlighted the oncology services available at Sir Paul Boffa, the palliative care provided by the Malta Hospice Movement at Boffa Hospital, where the movement set up a palliative care clinic seven years ago. They also dealt with the services at St Luke's Hospital, the important input made by the provision of psychological and spiritual care, as well as education and research on cancer and palliative care.

The conference proved to be a positive experience, even if most newspaper reports were scant on a subject that must occupy the minds of us all in the seemingly perennial quest for cure and, failing that, for the best and most professional palliative care to be placed at the disposal of those who have been visited by an illness that is more widespread than we would like it to be.

In this context, it is not so much the inadequacy of hospital space that matters most. This is a physical lacuna that can be put right. It is the ability of our specialists and every type of carer to provide the cancer patient with the best possible curative treatment and palliative care. Still, it is disquieting to learn that Boffa Hospital can only service two cancer wards, each capable of holding 12 patients. It is planned to increase this number to 16 and to set up a palliative unit and a day ward for patients. The superintendent, Maria Sciberras, is under the impression that any migration to the new Mater Dei Hospital in Tal-Qroqq may not take place for another 10 years.

Often, the latter form of care is active, whether in the palliative care clinic at Boffa Hospital or, indeed, in the home. The clinic is regarded at the oncology department as "a subtle but very essential presence; a recognised necessity to patients and staff". What the Hospice Movement would like to see is a marked extension of this care, which is accepted by all the health care systems of the developed countries. This can only be brought about by the creation of a palliative medicine discipline to form part of the Medical School curriculum and a career structure for nurses who wish to be a part of this discipline.

Such a development sounds like a vital necessity in the context of an illness that has become fairly common in Malta. The more trained medical staff we have to cope with the illness in a manner that is beneficial to, and positive for, the patient, the better. It is incumbent on the leaders in the oncology department to do everything possible to sell government this idea.

By having enough of these qualified "operators" on the books of our hospitals, more and more patients, at Boffa and St Luke's hospitals, will benefit. Not only. The current fear of cancer patients at the thought of being sent to St Luke's Hospital, where one speaker expressed the curious opinion, if that is indeed the case, that they are not wanted, will subside proportionately to the professionalism they can expect to receive at the hands of qualified carers available at this hospital.