The job's emotionally tiring

Dubai: Dealing with death can be the worst experience imaginable. Try having that as a job.

This is what Dr David Spence, Dr Martin Thornington and Veronica Chew of Shaikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC) in Abu Dhabi deal with every day.

In their line of work, terminally ill patients need full time care due to their condition.

"When it becomes too much for the patient to cope, we come in and make it as easy as possible for them," Dr Spence, chair of the department of medicine, said.

Dr Thornington, homecare consultant in SKMC, said that when a disease is not curable, they make sure that they provide everything a patient needs before he or she passes away.

"If there is a case where we cannot cure the patient, we try to help them emotionally and physically during that process. We have also made an effective link between the comfort of a hospital and the patient's home," he said. The department not only does physical assessments, they spend time with the patients to make them feel comfortable.

"We had an elderly cancer patient a while back whose disease had spread so much that there was no further treatment."

Dr Thornington and Chew, nurse manager in the homecare department, took care of her throughout the process.

Chew said: "Because her family couldn't be there for her every day, we became her second family. During her last year, Dr Thornington and I got attached to her so when it was time for her to go, it hurt us."

Dr Thornington added: "We all die, but our goal here is to make it as easy as possible. When people feel abandonment, we are there for them." Because the UAE has a family-oriented and diverse culture, many problems occur.

Dr Spence said: "Families in this country are relatively big in number, so we get many cases where we do not have the entire family's approval to tell the patient what is wrong with them."

Much of this is due to the belief that if a patient knows they are sick, they will give up. One of the hardest moments, according to Dr Thornington, is telling the family what is wrong with the patient and convincing them the doctor's treatment is the best option.

According to Dr Spence, working with terminally ill children is also very difficult. A caregiver is without a doubt an emotionally tiring job.

"As a professional, you have to learn to deal with these problems every day and leave them at the hospital when you walk out the door," Chew said.

"Not many people can deal with this sort of care. Those professionals, I think, have to have special emotional skills to deal with patients, because it is very wearing," Dr Spence said.

Dr Thornington added: "You spend time and energy in developing relationships with people who you know will be gone soon. You cannot take that home with you... The most satisfying moment I experienced was when a young patient of ours who did not have her parents with her and knew that she did not have that much time left stayed strong and positive. It made me feel proud."

"Everyone wants their last days to be spent in their home with their loved ones, but sometimes that is not possible.. our goal is to make people feel as comfortable as possible. Accomplishing that is the most rewarding feeling," Dr Spence said.