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Nursing care as provided to ante finem patients
JANSOVÁ, Markéta
The subject of death and dying is still considered a taboo in our society. It is awkward and anachronistic since our times require people full of life and vigor. The terminally ill are often snubbed by the society. Though being well aware of the unfavorable prognosis, many a doctor tries to treat the patients to the very last moment, and he or she perceives the death as a personal defeat. In 1967 Cicely Saunders, an English doctor familiar with the dismal conditions of dying in the then society, founded in London the St. Christopher's Hospice, the first modern facility of this kind. The philosophy of this effort has been perpetuated in the Hospice of the Agnes of Bohemia established in 1995 as the first hospice in the Czech Republic. The Bachelor Paper aimed to assess the possibilities of providing the ante finem care by health-care personnel at a hospital and a hospice. The Paper investigated these hypotheses: H1 - Health-care workers provide the ante finem patients with health care in conformity to the standards applicable to both types of the facilities; H2 - Approach of the personnel to the care is dependent on their emotional stability; H3 - Health-care personnel in hospitals are not aware that the art of accompanying is a part of the nursing process. The surveyed sample was compiled of nurses on the staff of the Internal Medicine Ward and the Post-Treatment Ward of hospitals in České Budějovice, Jihlava and Třebíč and the hospices in Prachatice, Červený Kostelec and Brno. The data were gathered through a questionnaire. Altogether 170 questionnaires were distributed and 136 out of them were processed in the final assessment. As follows from the assessment results, the care provided to the terminally ill patients in hospitals is affected primarily by time pressures and by the fact that the nursing staff are not fully aware of the possibilities that palliative care offers, while in hospices the conditions available for the palliative care have a quality basis. Results of the Paper will be given to one of the hospitals and two hospices specified above, where they can inspire some new ideas about possible improvement in providing the palliative care.
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