Lancet Commission calls for community model care for people dying

It acknowledges Kerala’s palliative care model

One of the most chilling memories of the COVID-19 pandemic has to be the way in which people who contracted the infection — especially in the first year of the pandemic — died in intensive care units, alone and scared.

The pandemic thus perhaps give a better perspective into the issue of how “overmedicalised” death has become and how increasing overreliance on medical interventions towards the end of life increases the suffering of the dying, as noted by the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death, in its report (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02314-X/fulltext) released on Tuesday.