Perspectief 2020-48

50 Kateryna Biletska MA Perspectief and palliative care units still do not meet international standards and the conditions of patient stay in those institutions are not always satisfactory 52 . Due to the lack of institutions where palliative care is provided most incurable patients in Ukraine die at home. This, in its turn, places additional load on their family members. According to the results of the study done by Detsyk O.Z. at al., 70.5% of carers in Ukraine are women and 29.5% are men. 46 % of family caregivers take care of their incurable next of kin over the period from several months up to a year and 25% of relatives experience this condition for several years. Since 91.8 % of family caregivers in Ukraine are working- age individuals (70.5 % - women, 29.5% - men), such care may cause financial problems. Before the appearance of an incurable patient in the family, 21.9 % of the respondents in the above study considered their financial income low. After the fact of the incurable disease was diagnosed, dissatisfaction with their financial situation was expressed already by 40.4% families. It is not a coincidence that relatives of incurably sick people have material difficulties. Only 69, 2% of close relatives have a full-time job, and one in ten of them is working on a temporary job. Also, 72.5% of caregivers informed about the change of their social activity (impossibility to have some meetings with friends, to go to church, to attend theatres, cinemas, etc.), and as a result, 70.5% of the respondents had the sense of social isolation. Besides that, relatives reported about the fear to fall ill (77.1%), to lose their job (54.2%), uncertainty about the future (76.4%), despair (55.2%), sense of guilt to the incurable patient (39.9%), etc. 53 . Many of the terminal patients’ close relatives would like to get psychological support: 72.6% of the parents of incurable children and 44.8% of the caregivers of incurable adults need help 54 . 46.2% of the members of the fatally ill persons ’ families indicated that they just did not know the institutions where they c ould get qualified and affordable psychological aid 55 . Also, they would like to get more attention from health care professionals and social workers, representatives of the clergy, volunteers, etc. 56 . There are several reasons why the needs of incurable patients’ families are not met. In some regions of Ukraine, there is still not a single palliative care institution, units, nor any separate palliative care wards (for instance, in Chernivtsi, Khmelnytskyi, and Odesa re- gions) 57 . Even the already established palliative care provision centers do not always