Public Good and Palliative Care- through the Eyes of Ranvir Shah
Ranvir Shah’s trust provides palliative care in Chennai in low cost environment.
Ranvir Shah who has always been an active social activist and a culture catalyst looks into the areas of medical care as an acute need for adaptation.
Ranvir Shah, in one of his blog posts, spoke about the need of the hour- Palliative care in India. He addressed the issue of how medical practice in India is merely concerned about curing the disease and not curing the person. It’s a crucial zone of care that needs more of one’s attention for the betterment of the public.
Palliative care for the needy is what demands the day. Ranvir Shah firmly believes in enriching the quality of life rather than prolonging it. His focus drove him to create a charitable trust for the ones who are in actual need of the care, that also looks into the chronic diseases and provide clinical treatment.
Pratham Hospice Trust, Chennai is the one that shelters all these facilities and makes a better place to live and to care. Ranvir Shah’s perspective of public good beholds in the meticulous care of the people through the advent of new medical procedures like Palliative care.
A disease not only affects the patient, but also his family, and palliative care focuses on taking care of both. It affects a person in all manners, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Thus palliative care enables at the very beginning after the diagnosis is done. Palliative care distinguishes death as two different elements- good death and bad death, where good death explains death in a peaceful, happy, and natural manner, with the loved ones around whereas bad death as a painful and lonely death within a hospital and no one around. Palliative care pans on preparing for death in a positive manner while disclaiming death as an obvious, unavoidable and natural phenomenon.
Ranvir Shah sees palliative care as an approach to prevent the pain from the disease and providing relief from the suffering.
Currently, his Pratham Hospice Trust, Chennai provides free medical consultation shared by some of the top and experienced doctors for the needy that has also joined hands with LSG 190 Foundation and is run by the name Maitreya Masonic Medical Centre. India as one of the most populated countries in the world covers a huge amount of life-limiting diseases like cancer which is majorly diagnosed to about 1 million people in the country every year, that too with stage IV of the disease. Roughly about 60–80% of these patients are in need of palliative and end of life care.
To this, Ranvir Shah in his blog has also stated that as per the human rights research, more than 7 million patients need palliative care in India every year and that only two states in the country-Kerala, Karnataka has palliative care policies. Maharashtra drafted a similar policy, but it is yet to be finalized. Dr M.R. Rajgopal, who is also known as the father of palliative care in India, has received Padma Shri award for the same.
With the initiative taken by Dr Rajagopal and with the help of Pratham Hospice Trust, life for the patients and their family can be made easier. The Pratham Hospice Trust provides services like well-qualified doctors on call, trained nurses, and volunteers who periodically visit and support the patient. Ranvir also addressed palliative care as one of the most economical ways of treatment that would also drop the expenses incurred by people on healthcare. And while implementation of this medical treatment, people who are in need or neglected, or financially unstable, a good treatment could be easily afforded.
Ranvir Shah altogether took palliative care to practical implementation and thereby helped in the cause of public good. He along with his charitable Pratham Hospice Trust serves around 6 patients at a time, and provide them with all the facilities. The trust is also successful in giving a phone consultation to patients right in their comfort zone- home. Ranvir Shah in an interaction with some media house also said that he hopes to expand this palliative ward on his family land in Padappai by lending support to around 75 patients. Thus, Ranvir Shah looks into palliative care as a sign of not dying in pain and practically be helpful to humankind.
