The Department of Palliative Medicine of the University of Aachen in Germany, in collaboration with the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital and Hope Life Co-operation Gambia, recently held a  three-day palliative training course for doctors and nurses at the RVTH conference hall, Banjul.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Dr Professor Patrick Addy of the RVTH stated that palliative care deals with the life of individuals and the way they live, noting that they are born as human beings and pass through various phases. According to him, palliative medicine is to “help your neighbour and your neighbour will help you. We need to give care to one another and care is necessary in everything we are doing”. For his part, Dr Professor Lukas Rad Bruch, from Germany, stated that palliative is about helping patients who are severely sick or dying. He said palliative medicine can do many things that modern medicine cannot do.

According to him, palliative care is all about prolonging life, caring for patients, relieving pain and helping. For his part, Alpha Jallow, national coordinator, WHO, said the WHO is happy to be associated with such training. “This is a important issue. As human beings, there comes a time when we actually need one another, especially people in pain. There also comes a times when sick people think they will die and to have somebody by their side talking to them and to drive away the pain is something that is very important,” he said.