Among the first palliative care developments in Slovenia was the formation of a multi-disciplinary group, led by the oncologist Dr Metka Klevisar, which organised educational and training events around the country, and some members of which visited hospices in Europe and the United States. The early work with patients was organised from Dr Klevisar's own home, providing counselling and giving advice for dying people, their relatives and for those who had been bereaved.9 Then two nurses, Tatjana Zargi and Bernarda Mudrovic, began to develop the work further. Here Tatjana Zargi describes what they were doing:
'So I was a professional nurse … half a year later Bernarda joined me … so we were two nurses now and we made this agreement with the people from the health care services that we will be paid for from the governmental money, just the two of us. All of the other activities: meeting, the educational things and the teaching about death and dying were going on at the same time. And afterwards we found that we needed more people so we started to educate volunteers for assisting dying persons and then found out that we needed a leader, a co-ordinator of volunteers, so we had the person working part-time on this field. Then we invited a psychologist, also working part-time and a new secretary was engaged, and from the beginning of this year [2001] we employed a social worker as well. Before we started the nurses were doing all this kind of teamwork and now there are more persons working like this. And then in the last two years we have tried to spread these activities in other areas of Slovenia. It's quite hard work to do and it usually starts as a couple or a group of people interested in these questions and problems … and that's the beginning of … more profound education and activities.' 10
She also outlines some of the problems and barriers:
'… family doctors are usually not informed enough how to treat pain … how to treat other symptoms. They're afraid to give stronger analgesics … the people are still afraid … so many prejudices not to use them in the right dosages. There is sometimes also the opposition of the relatives "Oh, you shouldn't give him that strong drug, this will kill him …" and so on and so on … But we learned also to insist to get the best, to fight for the best for those patients dying at home. Yes, we are stubborn, that's how you break through things, it is a so-called "stupid war" we are doing, but without this one there is no success.' 11
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