CanSupport’s helpline number rang and was promptly picked up by the helpline staff. This was a call from an old age home requesting for palliative care for an elderly woman, Saroj, who had cancer and was deserted by her family and left at the old age home.

Immediately, this case was referred to one of the teams in the home care programme.

Within a couple of days, the home care team visited the old age home and met Saroj, a 75 years old woman who spoke fluent Punjabi. She was happy to have some people over to see and interact with her.

For the CanSupport palliative care team, it was a unique case of getting a referral from an old age home.

The owner of the old age home shared with the team that Saroj’s family upon learning that she had cancer of the vulva, without informing her about the diagnosis, left her there and no one from her family ever visited her or was interested in looking after her or in knowing her well being.

The team nurse wanted to examine Saroj, but she was very unwilling and embarrassed to let the nurse examine her. The nurse counsellor spent a lot of time talking to her to develop a rapport, to help her feel more comfortable with her. The old age home owner asked the team to force the old lady to let the nurse examine her, but the team refused to force anything upon her, saying that this was against their mandate to force any patient to do something. As long as the patient didn’t give their consent, the team would not carry out any procedure. The team, after spending a few hours talking to Saroj, left and decided to visit her again after a couple of days.

On their next visit, they found Saroj much more relaxed, open and comfortable with the team. This time, she agreed to let the nurse examine her. The team nurse found and cleaned the wound. This was very painful for Saroj who couldn’t bear the pain, shouted and screamed at the nurse and even abused her. The team doctor tried to calm her and gave her pain-relieving medication.

Looking at the condition of her wound, the team decided to visit her every third day. Every time the team nurse would clean and dress the wound, she would grumble and abuse the nurse. This went on for a month, after which the wound started to improve, putting Saroj in comfort. She then became more positive towards the team nurse and started to feel better. The palliative care team never met her family since no one from her family ever visited her.

The lady in charge there told us that her family was not ready to take her back home as her children didn’t have time to take care of her.

As the time passed on, Saroj became less agitated and didn’t react negatively any more as her wound had started to heal and was less painful. She started chatting and liking the palliative care team and started to look forward to their visits.

After a couple of months when the team called the old age home to fix the next visit, they were informed that Saroj passed away peacefully in her sleep the night before.

As her palliative care team, the team feels happy that they could make Saroj’s life less painful, less lonely and comfortable. Saroj continues to live in the hearts of the home care team that looked after her when her own family had abandoned her. May Saroj find eternal peace.