Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health issues decree on reimbursement for palliative care

When H.S. was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer she made it clear to everyone around her that she was going to put up a fight. She had surgeries, took chemotherapy, and continued to manage her home and business as if nothing had changed.  I met her two years into her illness during her last hospitalization. She had been admitted with severe pain and intractable vomiting. She was unable to eat and had lost half her body weight. Her oncologist performed the necessary tests, then informed her family that she had exhausted her treatment options. She had intestinal obstruction, but her body could not tolerate the surgery required to fix it. The pain and vomiting could not be controlled, and she would most likely have to spend her final days in the hospital.  Her family was advised to reach out to me by a physician friend. I visited H.S. in her hospital