You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Letter
Strategies maintaining hospice and palliative care quality during COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan
  1. Ping-Hsueh Lee1,
  2. Jen-Kuei Peng2,3,
  3. Hsien-Cheng Chang4,
  4. Paul Sin-Bao Huang5,
  5. Chien-Yi Wu6,
  6. Su-Hsuan Hsu7,
  7. Yih-Chyang Weng8,
  8. Chun-Yi Tu9,
  9. Jun-Hua Lee10,
  10. Ge-Lin Chiu11 and
  11. Jaw-Shiun Tsai2,3
  1. 1 Department of Geriatric Medicine, Kuang Tien General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
  2. 2 Department of Family Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
  3. 3 Department of Family Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
  4. 4 Department of Family Medicine, Lo-Hsu Medical Foundation Lotung Poh-Ai Hospital, Yilan, Taiwan
  5. 5 Department of Family Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
  6. 6 Department of Family Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Chung Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
  7. 7 Department of Family Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital Jinshan Branch, New Taipei, Taiwan
  8. 8 Radiation Oncology, Nantou Hospital, Nantou, Taiwan
  9. 9 Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital Taoyuan Branch, Taoyuan, Taiwan
  10. 10 Department of Social Work, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan
  11. 11 Department of Nursing, National Cheng-Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Jaw-Shiun Tsai, National Taiwan University Hospital Department of Family Medicine, Taipei 100, Taiwan; jawshiun{at}ntu.edu.tw

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2021-003276

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    To the Editor:

    The pandemic COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on public health across the globe. Despite the proximity to China, Taiwan has come out relatively unscathed through this worldwide crisis. Up to 19 May 2021, among the total 24 million people in Taiwan, 14 991 cases were diagnosed as having COVID-19.1 Compared with other epidemic areas, the relatively small inflow of patients with COVID-19 did not burden the healthcare system in Taiwan. However, hospice and palliative care professionals were experiencing a profound change in their daily practice. All the administrative control measures aiming to prevent virus spread also precluded interpersonal communication, which was valued most for a good death in hospice and palliative care. To further clarifying and investigating this ongoing problem, Taiwan Academy of Hospice Palliative Medicine (TAHPM) held a nationwide online meeting for information sharing and problems solving. We categorised important issues and formulated some practical suggestions to maintain the palliative care quality. We prepared this letter with a humble intention to share with experts across the world the nature and the extent of influence we have gone through and also a few lessons learnt. We summarise all issues in table 1, complemented by the following texts.

    View this table:
    • In this window
    • In a new window
    Table 1

    Strategies maintaining hospice and palliative care quality

    Maintaining the quality of in-patient palliative care

    Since the outbreak, to avoid occurrence of intramural transmission, visitors needed to pass a screening station at the hospital’s doorstep. Those …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors J-ST arranged and launched the online meeting. All authors contributed to the issues and related suggestions in the manuscript, drafting the work and approved the final version submitted and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in its accuracy and integrity.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.