The Health Area of Ibiza and Formentera launches a guide for end-of-life patients and their families, funded by IFCC

Ibiza and Formentera Against Cancer keeps Helen Watson’s legacy alive as the first anniversary of her passing approaches

The recommendation guide for the environment of people at the end of life focuses on care, communication, and how to manage death at home

The Health Area of Ibiza and Formentera (asef) has published a recommendation guide for patients and families at the end of life, driven by the Palliative Care Unit and funded by the Association Ibiza and Formentera Against Cancer (IFCC).

The recommendation guide for the environment of people nearing the end of their life focuses on aspects such as patient care and family self-care, communication within the family and with the youngest members, the physical changes and symptoms that appear in the final days of life, and practical recommendations for managing death at home, including the necessary procedures.

This guide is part of a series of recommendation guides for patients funded by IFCC, starting in 2018 with the Guide to Care for Women after Breast Surgery, followed by the advice and care guides “Living with a Colostomy,” “Living with a Urostomy,” “Living with an Ileostomy,” and later the guides “Living with a Tracheostomy” and “Living with a Laryngectomy,” published in 2021. A year later, the guide of recommendations for patients undergoing chemotherapy and their families was launched, driven by the Onco-Haematology Day Hospital team. All these guides were sponsored by the IFCC, thus keeping alive the legacy of Helen Watson, who was president of IFCC for 15 years and whose first death anniversary is this week.

At the presentation of the guide, Manuel de la Osa, widower of Helen Watson, was present alongside the new president of IFCC, Gail Fear, the vice-president, Berno Kieberd, the asef manager, Enrique Garcerán, the Medical Director of Hospital Care, Dr Sausan Sayed, and the Palliative Care Unit team, Dr Pilar Rapún, Dr Lorena Hortelano, and nurse Ana Marí, in what served as a tribute to Watson on the first anniversary of her passing.

A long history of collaboration with the Health Area of Ibiza and Formentera

IFCC celebrates 15 years of close collaboration with asef, funding and sponsoring numerous initiatives and projects that have improved the quality of life of cancer patients in the Pitiusa Islands, thanks to the donations from its many members and the charity events it has organised since its creation in 2001. These include, among others, the decoration of the oncology nursing consultations and the Palliative Care Unit consultation, the acquisition of an endoscope for the Formentera Hospital, the funding of the pilot project for colon cancer screening, and the hiring of a physiotherapist for the Lymphoedema Unit, as well as providing cars for the Palliative Care Unit and donating 26 new state-of-the-art reclining chairs for cancer patients at Can Misses Hospital along with five televisions with built-in headphones for the chemotherapy room.

For the manager of the Health Area of Ibiza and Formentera, Dr Enrique Garcerán, “presenting this end-of-life recommendations guide is somehow a new tribute to Helen Watson, the driving force behind the association Ibiza and Formentera Against Cancer, just weeks before the anniversary of her passing. This association thus maintains its indelible and important legacy of improving the conditions of cancer patients. We also do our best to improve this situation and have recently hired a new oncologist, four in less than a year, and we continue to work to retain this young and capable team and create the conditions for them to develop their professional careers in Ibiza and Formentera.”