Nursing facility: Home for the terminally ill who can afford it

The home provides round-the-clock care to terminally ill patients or those recovering from a surgery.


Rameez Khan December 17, 2014

LAHORE:


The dreary sanitised ambience of hospitals had taken a toll on 82-year-old Azam Niazi’s health. The elderly patient of Parkinson’s disease had to be admitted to a hospital for a few days every few months, his family says.


They brought him to Fresh Nursing Facility two months ago where he stayed for 14 days. “He left the facility with such pleasant memories that he returned to thank the doctors and nurses for taking such good care of him,” his daughter Ayesha Niazi said. The attention the doctors gave him and the home-like environment of the facility helped him recover faster than he usually did, she said.



Fresh Nursing Facility, the first of its kind in the city, opened six months ago. The idea was to provide a round-the-clock nursing facility for terminally ill patients who would otherwise have to employ private nurses at home. The nursing home has six beds; provides round-the-clock nursing and post-op care; it has a medical officer; special patient mobility equipment; a stand up lift and hoist; professional grooming; and rehabilitation facilities ( physical therapy, speech therapy).  It has recently launched a dialysis facility, FNF’s Marketing Manager Mavra Mela said. The beautifully-painted dialysis lounge has a recliner for patients to sit on and watch television while they undergo dialysis. A technician, a medical officer and a nurse are on standby throughout the procedure, she said.

Mela said the hallmark of their services was the personalised care they provided patients, from personalised diet plans to guidelines for coping with illness. She said they were also setting up an operation theatre where doctors will be able to perform general surgeries.

However, the idea has not caught on yet, she said.  Only three patients have checked in since it opened.

CEO Ashba Kamran said they mostly catered to patients whose condition did not require admittance to a hospital but required round-the-clock care and medical attention. One of the misconceptions surrounding such facilities is that they only cater to the elderly, she said. “Terminal illness can befall anyone at any age,” she said. “Our facility provides nursing care and rehabilitation to patients round-the-clock regardless of their age or nature of illness.”

Cost of treatment could be one of the reasons why the facility hasn’t received many patients yet. FNF charges Rs5,000 per day for patients staying at the facility for over a month and Rs6,500 per day for patients staying at the facility for less than a month. Mela said the facility had a dining hall where patients received breakfast, snacks and air-conditioning facilities free of cost. Patients are provided means of contacting their families at any time of the day. Patients can get manicures, pedicures, massages and have their hair dyed. All rooms have televisions. And while attendants are not allowed to stay overnight, they can visit their ill relatives and friends in a lounge over a cup of tea and snacks. “This is included in the package,” Mela explained.

Proper care and attention reduce the period of recovery for most patients, Kamran said. FNF is her brainchild. “My mother died at a well-reputed hospital in the city after she was mishandled by nurses transferring her from the stretcher to the bed,” she said. She said it was after her mother’s sad demise that she decided to open a facility for terminally-ill patients.

In most hospitals, even if patients have their own rooms, there is only one nurse for over a dozen patients, she said. Patients recovering from surgery or dealing with chronic illnesses require a kind of care they fail to get at hospitals. She said FNF tried to provide these to its patients. Kamran hopes that the idea will catch on soon. She plans to open similar facilities throughout the city when that happens.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18th, 2014.

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