Due to aging population and an increasing number of patients with terminal illness, palliative and end-of-life care has lately become an important topic of concern in Hong Kong recently. In view of the concern over respect to patient self-determination and improvement of their quality of life at the terminal stage, the government will implement the legislative proposal of advance directives and dying in place in this year. To equip the sector with knowledge of the related topics and its impacts on palliative and end-of-life care service development, the Council publishes “Newsletter on Palliative and End-of-Life Care Service”.
The issue 8 of the newsletter is “The Perspective of Carers’ on the Challenges of End-of-Life Care” (only Chinese version). When the health conditions of the cared declines significantly, how could carers equip themselves to prepare for new challenge. Through the data from a focus group discussion, this issue will demonstrate various scenarios of end-of-life care carers will face so that they could prepare life and care planning for themselves and the cared.