Ukraine lacks a system of providing palliative care to elderly patients with diabetes, says Nataliya Kozhan, executive director of the Ukrainian Diabetes Federation.
“In our country, unfortunately, at present, practically no attention is paid to the provision of palliative care for this category of patients. I very often encounter such patients, working at the Department of Palliative and Hospice Medicine at the Shupyk University. Shupyk, and I hear from patients that medical workers and doctors, even with a severe course of diabetes and with a high level of pain, do not offer measures of palliative care,” she said during a round table in Kiev.
At the same time, Kozhan emphasized that “unfortunately, to date, there are no recommendations from the WHO on the provision of such care.”
“We do not have clinical protocols for providing this care, but it should be dealt with,” she said.
