Palliative Care
What is Palliative Care?
Palliative care is a compassionate approach to improving the quality of life for those suffering from critical illnesses. Our team’s main goal is to alleviate discomfort and tension by attending to physical, emotional, and psychological needs. Palliative care can be incorporated at any stage of an illness and can be combined with other medical treatments.
At Sunninghill Recovery Lodge, our team collaborates with medical professionals to manage pain and provide support to both our guests and their loved ones. Many people underestimate the physical, emotional, and practical challenges that patients face during times of illness and home care for palliative patients can become very costly and compromise the patient’s privacy and dignity. This is why our trusted team works tirelessly to ensure precise instructions from healthcare specialists are followed, such as taking prescribed medications and attending follow-up appointments, while closely monitoring your health and understanding that everyone’s situation is unique.
What does our palliative care involve?
At Sunninghill Recovery Lodge, our skilled team has experience in Palliative care, including:
- Providing you with dignified care once there are no curative interventions left.
- Ensuring medicines are correctly administered.
- Providing management of extreme symptoms, as most patients are non-mobile and require 24-hour pressure care.
- Providing emotional and mental support to the patient as well as their families, friends, parents, and children.
- Caring for patients during severe episodes, which cannot be dealt with without a team of experienced staff.
- Facilitating communication between a variety of inputs, including family members, therapists, and other professionals.
Our approach
At Sunninghill Recovery Lodge, our team ensures that you are met with exceptional care, enabling you to remain comfortable during your stay. Our experienced team not only assists with the medical aspect of palliative care, but also ensures the emotional needs of patients, family, and friends are maintained in a respectful manner.
Our objective is to provide a guiding light to families who end up in unexpected situations, where palliative care is needed. At Sunninghill Recovery Lodge, we understand that dealing with the illness of a loved one is very difficult, which is why we cater to not only supporting the patient, but their loved ones too.
We aim to adapt to the ways in which loved ones choose to go about the patient’s stay, urging them to visit, along with fur-children, and to say their final goodbyes in whatever way works for the family. It may sound strange, but we believe that everyone can have a good death focused on peace, beauty and making the most of the final precious moments.
Once our team gets to know you, we ensure that we understand your unique needs and wishes. Our team will help get you settled into your room and take time to learn about your requirements to ensure that you are able to remain in control and feel at ease during your stay.
Our team will ensure your vitals are taken, treatments are scheduled, and ablution requirements are met. Most importantly, we will ensure you are treated with kindness, dignity, and compassion. We do our utmost to ensure that your emotional and psychological needs are also met.
When it comes to nutrition, we ensure that fluids are consumed and that our excellent meals inspire you to stay energised. Every guest always has a call button on hand to ensure that we can attend to your needs 24/7. Our main goal is to eliminate anxiousness, ensuring you never feel alone or vulnerable.
Our goal is to ensure our guests feel safe, loved and in control. We have no restrictive visiting hours or schedules, so you have the freedom to decide what you need and when you would like friends and family to visit.
Our approach makes use of three simple steps:
1. Create a non-clinical, beautiful, and safe environment that feels like home, but is staffed with carers attending to your needs 24/7, who also take detailed records, and assist in symptom management.
2. To combine outdoor views, delicious, nutrient-dense meals, and private en-suite rooms to create a soothing and comforting environment for a beautiful death, surrounded by loved ones.
3. To give control back to the guest by providing them with dignity while we communicate regularly and thoroughly with loved ones.