Paul Calvert spoke with Amal Dweib, the Director of the Al-Sadeel Society in Bethlehem.

Amal: It's very important, because from my experience in working with the cancer patient, we didn't give the terminally ill cancer patient any attention; we started to talk with each other that this patient is terminally ill and we have nothing to do for him. The human is human though, so he should die in dignity, free of pain, free of suffering and this is what made me start palliative care because palliative care equals quality of life and good quality of life according to the WHO standards.

Paul: Are you the only ones doing this in the Palestinian Authority?

Amal: Sadeel initiative and palliative care is a very new initiative and the only initiative in my country.

Paul: How important is this work for the families?

Amal: When we did the research all over the country, we asked the families what they need. The families need dignity, care, love; they need to control their pain and suffering and they need someone to talk with them. They want people to communicate with them, to respect them and this is a very big need for the patients. If we can manage it, in most cases they also need to be in their home. It is good for the patient because they suffer a lot from going through the borders and they need special permits, so these patients need to be treated in the home and we can afford it by a palliative care team.

Paul: You have camps, what sort of people are on the camps?

Amal: Our camp was for 14 days and our beneficiaries were the patients and their families. We also had people whose mother or father had died from chronic disease.

This camp was a very beautiful time. We did many things; we had drawing sessions; we had something to produce, something to express their feelings; we had a special theatre show for those people that express their feelings and we also had trips to enjoy in some beautiful places and tourist places. We offered them healthy food and we provided them with many fun activities. We hosted many societies that do fun activities and it was a great experience for the patients. They told me at the end of the camp that we want to continue in these days; it was very beautiful days for them and they forgot the disease.

Paul: You aren't just caring, but you are doing education as well aren't you?

Amal: We have an agreement with the Ministry of Health to integrate the palliative care into the curriculum of nursing school. This agreement is to help the nursing student know about quality of life and about palliative care; this involves good communication, symptom management and pain management. We have many partnerships to do workshops in all the universities of the West Bank. We are cooperating with universities in implementing research with their students, to raise the need for palliative care service.

Paul: Are people in the Palestinian Authority aware of things to help prevent cancer, like foods and smoking?

Amal: We don't have a lot of programmes that work on this. We need a lot of work to raise the awareness in the community because in the community there is still a stigma of cancer. The community sees cancer as a fatal disease and because of that they hide if they find any sign of cancer. They hide it because they are afraid of dying.

They still smoke a lot and we have a lot of stress and sometimes the food is not healthy, so we need to work on healthy diets and we need to work on seeing people stop smoking. We also need to work to correct many false beliefs about cancer, because cancer is now treatable, but unfortunately every year we discover around 1,400 cases and about 70% of them are in the late stage, because the patient wasn't aware about the symptoms and they didn't give any attention to their health.

Paul: Do you care for both Muslims and Christians?