Marta Baselga: «This mask that I have in my hands inactivates the coronavirus»
8 March, 2021
Direct to 'El Hormiguero': the Metastatic Breast Cancer Association achieves its challenge
8 March, 2021
Nurse and social worker, she is part of the Health Research Institute of Aragon and is a member of Geriatrics at the Official College of Nursing of Zaragoza.
She has just taken charge of the Spanish Association of Palliative Care Nursing (Aecpal) and is national vice president of the Spanish Society of Palliative Care (Secpal). What challenges does she take on?
Continue advancing and making the work of nurses visible. Among the objectives is the creation of new work groups led by leading nurses in pediatric palliative care, in geriatric patient care, in teaching at the university level, and to continue with our research group. Nurses must lead care, show its importance and generate evidence.
What is nursing work like in palliative care?
Being able to accompany patients and family members in their end-of-life process makes you mature, grow, and ask yourself many things about your own death. When a patient gives you permission to accompany them in this transcendent, personal process, it makes you feel privileged.
Is it hard for professionals?
When you work in palliative care, you know that all the patients you meet, regardless of their age or pathology, are going to die in a short period of time. It favors the appearance of emotional exhaustion, but it is also an opportunity for personal and professional growth and maturity. In palliative care you always work as a team, and that helps.
Is training important?
Very important. We ask not only for specific training, but also for the specialty of palliative care. This work should never be improvised: you must know what to say, especially what not to say, how to provide emotional restraint.
They claim the specialty.
That's how it is. Now to work in palliative care teams it is not necessary to have specific training. In some communities, bags have been created.
What do they demand from the administrations to continue moving forward?
We ask for equality and equity in resources and access to them, regardless of where we live, how old we are, our race, culture, income or the pathology we are facing. The non-existence of a national law on palliative care allows each autonomous community to have its own criteria.
Is there closer contact with the patient and their families?
Undoubtedly, the object of care of the teams is not only the patient, but also the family. And most of the time, in the most intimate and personal space that is one's own home. Caregivers must be reinforced, given confidence and security.
Is it difficult for them to understand that the end of life is coming?
Yes, and very transcendent, for which it is difficult to be prepared depending on the situations. Losing always implies a duel and duels hurt. The support must be active and perceived by the patient and family.
What is palliative care?
Pain is not only physical, it is multidimensional. We can prescribe all types of analgesia, but if we do not assess how you are experiencing your illness, what you know about it, what you want to know, your fears, your uncertainties, how this process is affecting you, it may possibly be insufficient. It is much more than prescribing drugs.
What values are linked to the well-being of patients?
Mainly, that they can access palliative care at an early stage of the disease so that they can live as well as possible, for as long as possible. And, of course, being pain-free. Their autonomy and dignity must be respected.
In the debate on euthanasia, what is Aecpal's position?
Euthanasia is a social debate not exclusive to palliative care. There is a mistake when focusing on life versus liberty. It seems that the law contains a certain contradiction when euthanasia is equated with a "good death" or a "dignified death." No one wants to die in pain, neglected, abandoned and alone, we all want a humanized end of life. As nurses, we must work and investigate how to deal with the experience of human suffering, especially when it is irreversible and requires us to be responsible for providing a response and, of course, with accompaniment and with the essential and essential nursing care.
