History
The CUF Porto Hospital has a cancer centre - CUF Instituto de Oncologia - since the overture, in 2010, committed in clinical care of outpatients and inpatients with solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Since then, all the patients have been supported by the department staff that worked closely with other specialties in a multidisciplinary way.
In 2014, was set up a dedicated area to palliative care with a specialized team ensuring support care to inpatients and outpatients with chronic and progressive malignant diseases, during the different stages of their illness, going through chemotherapy treatment or not.
Profile
The Oncology and Palliative Care Department is committed in clinical care of adult patients with solid tumors or hematological malignancies. All the patients, benefiting or not from no longer anti-tumor interventions, are cared by the Palliative Care team. The facilities of the center include a fully staffed outpatient clinic for administration of cancer therapies and a fully staffed Palliative Care Unit.
The cancer center staff works closely with other specialists to ensure patient care and multidisciplinarity, with a more regularly support by Psycho-Oncology, Nutrition and Physiotherapy.
The cancer center also emphasizes clinical research and teaching (pre-and post-graduation nurses and post-graduation residences).
A Palliative Care consultation is also available in the center.
Palliative Care team also provides support to patients family and caregivers.
Specialities
The Oncology and Palliative Care Department is committed to treat all the patients with oncologic malignancies, giving them an integrated, comprehensive and humanized reply.
From all the diagnoses, lung cancer is by far the most frequent one what makes the palliative care team staff to have a great experience of treating patients with this malignancy.
The centre is also involved in clinical trials, but palliative care team staff has by now an interest in bereavement, with two prospective studies in this area.
Palliative and Supportive Care
The Palliative Care Unit is committed in treating all the patients with chronic and progressive malignant diseases, in any stage of their illness, going through chemotherapy treatment or not, with a 24 hours/365 days admission policy.
The patients in the Palliative Care Unit are under the clinical responsibility of the Palliative Care team; however, Oncologists and all other specialists have their place as active team consultants, according to an interdisciplinary work.
All the patients have a continuity of care service until death, as well as families in bereavement: all the outpatients are allowed to contact by phone whenever needed (an after-hours nursing telephone triage service provides patient/family professional specialized support); for all the inpatients in the Palliative Care Unit, the hospital discharge is prepared in advance, so patient and family may assure of proper follow-up (private support services engagement or national health system support, according to their will).
Last update: December 2022