The National Health Insurance Administration is expanding its service to cover community palliative and hospice care this month, following the coverage of hospital-based, home-based and integrated care in inpatient facilities it started offering in 1999.
Ninety-five percent of people who suffer from severe illnesses die in hospitals in Taiwan, but most of them expressed a desire to spend their final days at home, the administration said.
It added that it is for this reason that in 1999 it started to cover end-of-life hospice care services that are provided at a patient’s home with family members serving as the primary caregivers, in hospital’s palliative care wards and in inpatient units with integrated medical care teams.
Beginning this month, community hospice care services have also become available, the administration said.
Community hospice care is to be provided by healthcare workers whose participation has to be preceded by extra hours of clinical training, incorporating more physicians to the hospice care program for patients nearing the end of their lives to benefit from the service, the administration said.
A total of 10 groups of terminally ill patients can benefit from all forms of the hospice care provided, it said.
People with cancer, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, senile and pre-senile organic psychotic conditions, other severe brain damages, cardiac failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, other lung diseases, chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis, acute and chronic renal failure are all covered, the administration said.
The administration added it has estimated that about 500 people per year would apply to use the newly initiated community service program.
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