LONGGANG District Central Hospital recently started a trial program that offers “soothing care” to patients with terminal diseases and the service has been well received, Chinese-language media reported yesterday.

    Soothing care is similar in practice to deathbed solicitude — both try to ease the pains and other discomforts of patients and make them feel peaceful and dignified in the last period of their lives, Guo Yuwu with the hospital’s oncology department said.

    The beds for soothing care have been filled, leaving many patients waiting for vacancy, according to the hospital.

    Most of the patients who prefer soothing care are those in the terminal stage of cancer, Guo said.

    More than 14,700 people in Shenzhen were diagnosed with malignant cancer for the first time last year, a 17.9-percent increase from 2012, according to the city’s center for chronic disease control. The five most common types of cancer in Shenzhen last year were lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer and thyroid cancer.

    “Eighty percent of the patients are at the terminal stage when they are diagnosed with cancer and most of them have missed the best opportunity for treatment,” said Guo, who is also a member of Shenzhen Anti-cancer Association.

    Many patients in the terminal stage of cancer spend their last days at home, but patients often cannot receive proper medical care there, Guo said, and it places a great burden on their families.

    Soothing care is a general form of treatment, Guo suggested, saying that it should not only be used with terminally ill patients, but combined with regular medical treatment.

    Apart from a few private medical institutions, a hospice service home funded by Li Ka Shing Foundation is the only public facility that provides deathbed solicitude services in Shenzhen.

    The Longgang hospital plans to expand its soothing care service by opening a ward dedicated to patients in need of the service.

    Shen Weixi, director general with Shenzhen Anti-cancer Association, said the city should give financial support to establish free soothing care services in some community health centers.

    (Zhang Yang)