Palliative care in developing countries: luxury or necessity?

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Abstract
Palliative care is not a luxury in developing countries. This article challenges the assumption that money spent on the care of people who are terminally ill cannot be justified in the face of many competing claims. The absence of screening and diagnostic services, combined with a cultural reluctance to seek help, frequently results in patients presenting at a late stage in the natural history of their disease. Pain and symptom relief remain the only options. In developing countries, the health care systems and social networks are often inadequate to support terminally ill members of society and it is argued that palliative care home teams would provide the ideal model of care. Palliative care's eligibility for inclusion in the health care budget of Kenya is demonstrated in this article and the difficulties it is facing in other developing countries are described. A case history seeks to show the necessity of palliative care in these areas of the world.

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