Hospice care in India: A review

Palliative care is the need of the hour, especially in a country like India where the number of terminally ill patients has always been a concern, and with projections showing this number to only go up and increase exponentially, it is much more important that we now shift our focus to providing quality hospice care to the ones that are in need of it. In this article, the authors start out by defining Palliative care and hospice care, all the while maintaining the distinct features of them both. Once the foundation is set for the same, we dive into the history of palliative care in this country and how it has evolved over the years. We then move on to the present scenario of hospice care in India and try to look at it through a more contemporary lens. Further, we discuss the impact of some diseases that most adversely affect individuals and require end-of-life care in its more advanced stages. These include, but are not limited to, end-stage cancer, multidrug resistant (MDR)–tuberculosis and Human immunodeficiency virus-associated acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV–AIDS). We then move on to discuss the importance of academic interventions to strengthen the role of hospice care in the India and how research and education can help improve the condition of end-of-life care in all domains. We finally talk about how we can move forward and what positive changes we can bring about in order to make inroads into better and more sustainable hospice care in the Indian context. We hope that our work will cause healthcare professionals, and other people alike to better understand the role of hospice care in their own lives and livelihoods.