Palliative Team Erding: Without time pressure for the patient

Created: 03/12/2022, 08:00

By: Gabi Zierz

Compassion is the heart's response to pain: this empathy, combined with a great deal of expertise, is what the Palliative Team Erding has.

Hundreds of seriously ill patients in the district appreciate his valuable work every year.

© Gabi Zierz

The Palliative Team Erding looks after around 500 seriously ill patients every year.

Thanks to the donations from the readers' aid organization "Licht in die Herzen" (Light in the Hearts), the doctors and nurses can work flexibly.

Erding – The Palliative Team Erding (PTE) has had an intense year.

The doctors and nurses looked after around 500 patients this year.

The number has been consistently high for years and is also an expression of the great trust that seriously ill people in the district have when they are accompanied on their last journey to the PTE.

The specialists help to relieve their pain and support relatives.

Four permanent doctors and ten nurses are currently working for the PTE.

The pandemic still poses major challenges for them, even if the number of cases is falling.

Employees still wear protective suits, masks and gloves when they visit corona-positive patients at home.

"This expense is only partially refinanced," explains Steffen Ziener, head of nursing and together with the medical director Dr.

Elke Rockingham Managing Director of the PTE.

The team also has to do more financially, because the procurement costs for the material are also increasing, for example for disinfectants.

There is also psychological stress, Ziener admits.

For him and his colleagues, the relaxation of the corona virus goes a bit too far, for example the elimination of the obligation to isolate infected people who have no symptoms.

Everyday life at PTE looks different.

"We continue to test ourselves every day because we also go to homes," Rockingham explains the procedure.

And because the team also has to protect itself as best it can.

Nevertheless: “Corona caught us all in March – despite all the precautionary measures.

That pushed us to the limits of supply technology,” she admits in retrospect.

The PTE takes care of most seriously ill patients at home.

“For many of them, our visit is a ray of hope, because they also need to be spoken to,” says Rockingham, regretting: “Personal contact is severely limited.

A lot has changed as a result of the pandemic.”

The team continues to come in twos for the admission visits: "This way we can do justice to the patient and the family."

“The employees are under no time pressure.

If it takes longer, then so be it,” Ziener describes the situation that colleagues in outpatient care services can only dream of.

What Rockingham is finding out more and more: "People are worried, especially financially." The palliative team cares for many single patients who, despite their serious illness, want to stay at home as long as possible.

"But that only works if it is certain that they can call for help, for example after a fall," explains the doctor.

That is why the donations would also be used to pay for emergency calls, meals on wheels or co-payments for medicines.

"We are very grateful.

The donations help quickly and in a targeted manner,” emphasizes Ziener.

This year, the palliative care team was able to use the money to buy an ultrasound device that they can use to examine patients at home – for example, whether they have water in their stomachs or lungs.

This alleviates the suffering and saves trips to the doctor or to the clinic.

Another device is on the wish list.

Thanks to the donations, psychological help and social counseling can also be provided.

Here the palliative team works together with two psycho-oncologists.

"They help when patients go into a kind of shock paralysis because of their illness," explains Rockingham.

In this exceptional situation, it is often not even possible for you to open the post.

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Then the network is activated.

This also includes the psycho-oncological outpatient clinic at the Erding Clinic, which has been in existence for three years now.

"The need is huge," says Ziener.

It is a low-threshold offer that is very helpful to patients after the cancer diagnosis.

In conversations with the psycho-oncologists, they could formulate their anger, sadness and fears better and also allow weakness.

"The hospice completes the supply network," emphasizes Ziener: "We harmonize very well." A cancer patient recently benefited from this, and his condition quickly deteriorated.

The man was cared for at home by his family, the PTE was on site several times a week – including for emergency work at the weekend.

When it was no longer possible at home, the patient moved to the Sophienhospice, where specialists looked after him together with the family doctor – until the end.

Most employees in the hospice have known each other for years through the palliative care team or the hospice association.

"We grew together," says Rockingham.

So they shoulder the responsibility on many shoulders - and the patients and their relatives thank them.

Light in the heart: The readers' aid organization of the Erdinger/Dorfener Anzeiger supports people in need through no fault of their own in the district.

Donations can be made to the account (number 17 111) at Sparkasse Erding.

Account holder: Zeitungsverlag Oberbayern.

IBAN: DE54 7005 1995 0000 0171 11.