When men in khaki offer solace

Police personnel volunteering to join pain-and-palliative care movement

The police, with their professional and political bosses nodding in encouragement, are joining the pain-and-palliative care movement, which is fast becoming a grassroots-level social movement in Kerala.

“We are encouraging the Police Department to have at least two personnel in each police station in the State trained in palliative care,” K. Suresh Kumar, director of the Institute of Palliative Medicine (IPM), Kozhikode, who is one of the pioneers of the palliative care movement in the State, told The Hindu. Top police officers have been very supportive and have now agreed to make palliative care part of community policing.

Starting with the first ‘palliative-care-friendly’ police station at Chemmangad in Kozhikode city a few months ago, the men and women in khaki are signing up as volunteers in large numbers to offer solace and care to those who are terminally ill and bedridden. Dozens of police personnel in Malappuram district, the heartland of the palliative care movement in India, attended a two-day training on November 3-4 at Malappuram. On Thursday, over 60 police officers including Dy.SPs and Circle Inspectors attended a sensitisation programme at Aluva.

Training completed

A group of police personnel in Kerala Armed Police-2 at Muttikkulangara in Palakkad district has just completed their palliative-care volunteer training. In July this year, the KAP-4 at Kalliassery in Kannur district, at the initiative of its then commandant T.M. Abubacker, set up the Maitri Pain and Palliative Care Society.

“The police have a large network that is on call 24 hours a day,” P. Vijayan, Ernakulam Rural SP, who organised the Aluva workshop, told The Hindu. This is the first time that the officers of an entire police district are being drawn into the movement. Mr. Vijayan, who is a former SP of Malappuram, said he was inspired by his experience with the movement there. However, the police personnel would not be full-time volunteers. “Our role will be complementary,” Mr. Vijayan said.

Mr. Abubacker, who is currently SP, Special Investigation Group-3, CB-CID, recalled that when he, as commandant of KAP-4, suggested the idea of setting up a palliative care unit to his boss, IGP B. Sandhya, she readily agreed and had later asked other KAPs to follow suit. Mr. Abubacker also took the lead in setting up a palliative care unit in his native village Cheekkilodu.

M. Sainudheen, president of the Kozhikode City Palliative Care Society, is highly appreciative of the service provided by the police personnel in the three ‘palliative care-friendly’ police stations in Kozhikode city —Chemmangad, Kasaba and Panniyankara.

The five or six policemen in each of these stations, which are part of the Janamaitri programme, are made ‘beat officers’ in charge of 500 homes. They visit these homes once in a month and are familiar with the problems of the locality. The residents have the mobile phone number of the beat officer and in times of emergency they call him. “In case of a palliative emergency, the people call the beat officer who in turn gets in touch with us and we send out our home care units,” Mr. Sainudheen said. The beat officers also spot people who are chronically ill and are in need of palliative care—inpatient, outpatient or home care service.

Police participation

“They also organise local people, help in raising funds and arranging transportation to take the patient to hospital,” he said.

Mr. Sainudheen said the police participation helped to make people warm up to the police. He praised the Kozhikode police commissioner Anoop Kuruvilla for his role in linking the police with palliative care.

The pain and palliative care in Kerala has expanded to cover all chronically ill, bedridden patients, including paraplegics, kidney patients and incurable asthmatics. The ‘Malappuram model’ has, with its focus on neighbourhood participation and voluntary involvement, received worldwide attention.

“Police involvement in the palliative care movement will be the ultimate in community participation in the health care sector,” Dr. Suresh Kumar said.

And for the police, it would help them to improve their image in the people’s minds.