Similar to adults’ hospice care, hospice care provided to children may be home-based or stationary. The principal condition of admitting a child to a hospice is his/her incurable and progressing illness.
Hospice care is provided both to children and adults free of charge.
Legal regulations make no clear distinction into the stationary hospice care offered to children and to adults. Home-based hospice services constitute the exception as they have been expressly divided into child and adult care.
Admissions based on doctor’s decisions
The final decision on granting hospice services to a child is taken by the hospice doctor. To be admitted to a hospice, the child must suffer from an incurable disease which is in the terminal stage. The hospice objective is not to cure the patients, but to improve their quality of life, to prevent and manage their pain, and to alleviate their mental, spiritual and social anguish.
The guidelines of the National Health Fund provide a detailed specification of the illnesses that qualify a child for hospice care. These include carcinomas, congenital defects, HIV, acute consequences of injuries and poisonings, perinatal injuries and overall development defects.
Stationary hospices
Children staying in stationary hospices are provided, inter alia, with medical care, nursing care, pharmacological treatment, pain management and other measures intended to manage the somatic problems.
Both children and their families are also offered psychological assistance, rehabilitation services, adequate measures to prevent further complications and indispensable medicinal products.
Home-based hospices
Similar, though not identical, services are available to children staying in home-based hospices. Home-based hospice patients are not granted free pharmacological treatment, but merely medical prescriptions. Such medical products as crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, glucose meters or blood pressure monitors are lent to them free of charge.
The medical staff of home-based hospices is available to patients on a 24/7 basis, at the telephone number given.
Home-based children’s hospices provide services to patients under the age of 18, who may then be taken care of by adults’ hospices.
If a child is to be admitted to a home-based hospice, one additional condition must be satisfied, i.e. the child must be provided with a round-the-clock care of at least one person.
Perinatal hospices
There are still few perinatal hospices in Poland. These are facilities intended for the families who in the course of pregnancy learn about the lethal defects of the foetus (causing considerable disabilities which become terminal in a short span of time).
These hospices not only provide care to the sick children once they are born, but they also help their parents to prepare for this moment.
Sources of maintenance
Most hospices in Poland operate as associations, foundations or other non-profit institutions.
The Act on medical activity exempts the hospice activity of public benefit organisations from the obligation to operate under the principles binding on entrepreneurs. As a result, hospices may legally use volunteer services and financial resources coming from donations, public charity actions and one-percent tax deductions intended to support NGOs.
Apart from private money, hospices receive public funds, similar to any other medical entities, based on the contracts concluded with the National Health Fund.
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