History
The Charité is one of the oldest hospitals in Germany just celebrating its 300th anniversary.
The palliative care centre is integrated in to the department of haematology and oncology located at the Campus Virchow-Klinikum. The palliative care unit was founded in 1998 and serves as the central palliative care unit for the Charité Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
Profile
The Palliative Care ward is located in a separate building on the campus with access to its own garden:
- 10 beds in single rooms
- 11 nurses, specialised in palliative care
- 2 physicians
- 2 consultants, board qualified in internal medicine, haematology, oncology and palliative care
- Physiotherapist
- Social worker
- Priest
- Psycho-oncologist
- The centre offers palliative-care outpatient clinics and a palliative care consultant service for patients in different departments
- The centre offers board certified training in palliative care for physicians and nurses and palliative care courses for medical students.
The centre conducts regular workshops and palliative care seminars.
The palliative Care unit is integrated in to the department of haematology and oncology. The unit is linked to a network of home care doctors.
Palliative care research projects are in progress and focus on pain control, the management of terminally ill patients and instruments for assessing quality of dying.
Specialities
The centre covers all specialities of a big university clinic: Personalised treatment by physicians specialised in haemato-oncology and palliative care, 24 hour radiologic imaging and specialised palliative radiology guided interventions, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy, anaesthesia, specialised pain control by anaesthetic interventions, neurosurgery, visceral surgery, traumatology, 24 hour endoscopy service, intensive care medicine. The centre offers spiritual support for Christian, Muslim and Jewish confession, psych-oncology, psychiatry and 24 hour support by specialised members of the palliative care team.
