Palliative care in a global pandemic: threat and opportunity

摘要

The global pandemic arrived unexpectedly and has changed our world. It has impacted on all aspects of our lives, personal, societal and professional. Many clinicians have been faced with learning new skills, dealing with complexity, tackling challenging clinical decisions, and talking about death and dying, all in the context of high patient numbers, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) (where available) and patients (and some clinicians) being separated from their family members. Within this context, the need for palliative care has been recognised as an essential element of the COVID-19 response. This was highlighted through the World Health Organization (WHO) (2020) guidance on the clinical management of COVID-19 (WHO, 2020) and in the recent World Health Assembly (WHA) (2020) resolution on COVID-19.