Thursday 13 / March / 2025
Muscat: Omanis have opened their hearts to the palliative care campaign launched by Maggie Jeans OBE (Order of the British Empire), whose husband passed away in November last year.
Ever since the Times of Oman reported about Jeans’ mission of improving palliative care services in the country, people have actively responded to the cause and are ready to offer help.
Jeans is pleased with the responses and offers of help pouring in. “I have had phone calls, emails and meetings already and I am very pleased about the response, a lot of people are interested in this topic. I met a doctor yesterday and he was very passionate about it, we now need to get to the Ministry of Health, that’s my next goal.”
“There are three leading things with palliative care—it’s beneficial for the community, certainly saves money and frees up beds in the hospitals. So it’s got very practical outcomes, we are not really looking at raising funds for the cause, but educating and spreading awareness.”
Jeans has received offers of help from doctors, individuals and companies, who said they want to invest in the cause. Social media has also been abuzz with the topic, with several individuals coming forward to help take the cause forward.
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A government organisation, which deals with accommodations, said they would like to contribute and invest in the real estate part of the project.
“Palliative care and nursing homes are ideal PPP (Public Private Partnership) projects, where private investors acting as landlords set up such facilities and enter into a long-term lease backed solutions with the government, along with specialised operators appointed as the tenants who provide world-class end-of-life care,” said Baqar Haider, chief executive officer of Oman Accommodation Development Services (OADS).
“There may be a stigma attached to nursing homes, but I feel they both go hand-in-hand. I have personally experienced family members in such facilities back in the United Kingdom. With the right operators, the quality of care provided is beyond what any family member can provide in their home,” he added.
Dr. Zahid Al Madhari, senior consultant at the Oncology unit at the Royal Hospital said palliative care can do wonders for the patients and add life to days, rather than just days to life.
“In one particular case that always stands out to me, there was a lady with metastatic cancer; it was everywhere, in her bones in her lungs, just everywhere. She had gone through a number of chemotherapy sessions, but her body was just not responding.”
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“She was in pain and was suffering and at that time we had just started the service in palliative care then and she was one of our first patients. What was important with her was that she remain awake and conscious and be with her family on a daily basis,” said Al Madhari.
“When she was taking her pain medications, she was feeling a bit groggy, every time she saw the doctor, she said she was in pain, and they gave her more drugs and that were making her even drowsier.” “Before being seen by the palliative care team, she was being admitted to the accident and emergency room almost every day, complaining of pain. So we convinced her to be admitted to palliative care for one day, just so we could control her pain without getting her drowsy.”
“When we got her admitted and got her pain under control, just after her one day’s admission with the palliative care team, we had a lot of discussion about the symptoms, a long counselling session with her and her family in setting plans and goals, and after her discharge, she was never admitted to the hospital for a year until a week before her death,” revealed Al Madhari. “So from almost being admitted to the hospital on a daily basis, to no symptoms, and in the third month of her follow up in the palliative care clinic, she came and said she was symptom free, as if the cancer had gone.”
“This is really a testament that we can actually control symptoms, and it’s a crime that we actually have patients that are suffering when we have the medication, capabilities and know how to make them pain free, and not suffer,” explained Al Madhari.
“This lady lived symptom-free for a whole year with her loved ones; she only came to the clinic for some minor adjustments, so all of this was quality time for her, in contrast with coming to the accident and emergency unit every day until 3 or 4 am in the morning,” Al Madhari concluded.
