PALLIATIVE CARE

When you look at the word “Palliative”, it means to bring relief, to cloak. It is a holistic care approach for those suffering from chronic disease or any stage of serious illness, as well as those at end of life. We support patients and their families physically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually to provide dignity and quality of life and death when they are most vulnerable. Mozambique needs this care approach in the North, and it starts with program development and awareness at the community level while training local volunteers and staff. Included in the Palliative Care program is an evolving partnership with Beit CURE Children’s Hospital in Malawi to care for children with bone/skin deformities and disease.

Our program has grown from a very small District Home Based program to the pioneering of a Provincial level program which involves developing National government home care and healthcare staff. With overwhelming chronic and terminal disease, we have narrowed our focus recently to those in our communities suffering with cancer and children. Our newest phase of this programming includes the construction of a PATHOLOGY LAB. Currently, there is no lab in our province to process biopsies and diagnose cancer, so this has caused an increase in mortality and unnecessary suffering.

RAFAEL HEALTH CENTER & CLINIC

The FIRST Community Palliative Care Center with a primary focus on Cancer in the North of Mozambique.

We serve a God that heals, has healed, and is healing. Much of what we do in our community can be read about in Scripture. We see in Isaiah 61:1-3 and Matthew 5:14-16 how we should live, minister, respond and love our neighbors. Physical needs must be "bound" before hearts and ears can receive anything of eternal worth. There is an abundance Jesus refers to, a prosperity and happiness that comes in the holistic care He provides. We are light, and darkness must and will flee, not because we demand Justice, but because He is Justice, and He is a good Father. All this to say...it is time to serve those in need as a city on a hill. A physical building and a space that will provide freedom, education, and care for those with the greatest needs.

Our initial clinical focus will be a holistic approach providing Palliative/End of Life Care for cancer patients and children with special needs. It will also be the only training center in Mozambique that will educate and train health care professionals and local community activists in the area of Community/Home Based Palliative Care.

Exciting, and yes, it requires prayer, faith, finances, time, and teamwork! We are looking for prayer and financial partners as well as those medical professionals that would like to serve short term to care for patients and impart knowledge to professionals and volunteers here in the “Forgotten Province” of Niassa. It is vital to develop sustainability to equip and empower our National colleagues, partners, and community members in order to save lives and provide dignity to those at end of life.

Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the Palliative Care movement, said:

“You matter because you are. You matter to the last moment of your life and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die”.