What does palliative care mean?

Palliative care aims to relieve the symptoms and suffering of people with a serious and incurable illness (or when the person refuses treatment). It helps them maintain the best possible quality of life, without delaying or hastening death.

In Quebec, end-of-life palliative care includes:

• drug treatments: treatments aimed at limiting suffering.
• comfort care, also called well-being care, which refers to non-drug care whose objective is to increase the quality of life of patients and their loved ones, for example, hygiene care and psychosocial support,
• as well as continuous palliative sedation, that is to say the administration of substances to a person at the end of life in order to render them unconscious, continuously, until their death,
• but also, support for loved ones.

This care can be provided at home, in a hospital setting, in health and social services network institutions or in palliative care units. It is generally provided through medication, in an interdisciplinary manner, with a complete team of health professionals.

In Quebec, end-of-life palliative care is governed, like medical assistance in dying, by the End-of-Life-Care Act. This guarantees respect for dignity and rights until the last moments of life.

Palliative care is only one aspect of palliative care. Palliative care can be offered earlier in a person’s illness, even during treatments aimed at healing.

The palliative approach is based on fundamental values ​​guiding care in Quebec.

• Recognition of the uniqueness of each person, the value of life and the inevitability of death.
• Respect for the dignity of each person.
• Active participation of the person in decision-making, with free and informed consent, and respect for their autonomy.
• Right to compassionate services, respecting the values, culture and beliefs of patients and their loved ones

Continuous palliative sedation is part of end-of-life palliative care. It is an option to relieve intense suffering at the end of life when usual palliative care is no longer sufficient.

This care consists of administering medication to render the person unconscious.

According to the respecting End-of-Life Care Act, this sedation must comply with strict rules. The person must give their free and informed consent. If they are unable to do so, their representative makes the decision. A consent form must be signed in the presence of a doctor and kept in the file. The person can change their mind and withdraw their consent at any time.