Mumbai, Mary’s Clan 30 years of palliative care for alcoholics and the abandoned

The rehabilitation center was opened in 1983. Since then he has welcomed 350 patients, accompanying them to the end of life. Patients often recover relationships with families. "This is because palliative care addresses hope and the basic needs of everyone: humanity."

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - For over 30 years, Mary's Clan of Bandra (Mumbai) offers palliative care and compassionate support to alcoholics, terminally ill and the abandoned. Speaking to AsiaNews Bosco Pereira, director of the rehabilitation center from addictions argues that "palliative and compassionate care is a top priority. They respect the dignity of our people and respond to all forms of their humanity, including the spiritual dimension. "

The director explains that according to Catholic doctrine of " each person is a unity of body and soul. As persons, we are intrinsically valuable since we have been created to know, love, and serve God. This is why ending a person's life is wrong even if the individual has been determined to not have a "good" quality of life”.

The World Health Organization defines palliative care as "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual."

Mary's Clan was founded May 13, 1983 (Feast of Our Lady of Fatima) and since then has taken on more than 350 patients. Next to a therapeutic support, the center also deals with the spiritual support of the sick. "It is our responsibility - taking care of the sick for free, with gratitude for what we have received from them."

Pereira points out that even in the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible "(CCC 2276). He holds that "palliative care is a privileged form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged. "

In the center of the daily care of patients it is based on three pillars: the recitation of the Rosary in the morning, at lunchtime and at eight in the evening. The patients follow a rehabilitation program that includes group discussions, counseling and recreational activities. Their stay is entirely borne by the same center, which benefits from donations, as well as the celebrations of the funeral ritual in the event of death. This, says the director, "is determined on the basis of religious affiliation of the deceased. It is a way by which we can restore their honor and dignity. "

Thanks to the loving care of the staff, often sick renew relations with family members with whom they had lost contact because of alcohol addiction. This is because, he concluded, "we care and hope to meet the basic needs of everyone: humanity, that is, that each person should be accompanied towards the end of life with compassion, comfort, support and human presence and is touched in a way that truly respects the dignity and beauty of human life. "