“We never give up life and Isabel Galriça Neto possesses the ability to give life more life and with quality”, highlighted Paulo Portas, during his presentation of the book by the director of the Unit of Palliative and Continuing Care (UCCP), from Hospital da Luz Lisboa. The book launch event gathered, in that hospital’s auditorium, late in the afternoon of October 10, many friends and health professionals, several personalities of the Portuguese society, the president of the Lisbon City Council, Carlos Moedas, the former President of the Republic, Cavaco Silva, and the current Head of State, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. In “Da Ciência, do amor e do valor da vida – Relatos e padrões da identidade dos Cuidados Paliativos” (“Science, love and the value of life – Narratives and identity standards of Palliative Care), Isabel Galriça Neto resorts to stories of patients she followed along over 25 years of professional life, many of them in Hospital da Luz UCCP, to explain what is Palliative Care, how it relates with the other areas of medicine, and its decisive importance for people. “This book is about the reality of Palliative Care and the greatness and heroism of a few –realities hardly referred, but that I believed to be relevant to share. I felt it to be in a way my responsibility to write it, for the homage I must pay to the thousands of patients I have encountered and their families, and for the need to draw more people to the area”, she stated, regretting “the preconceptions and ignorance” that still exist in this respect, “which impede its development and prevent palliative care to reach all those in need”. “Only 30% of the Portuguese population has access to this healthcare”, she recalled. “Narratives that are worth reading” “Fifteen years ago, no one talked about palliative care in a hospital, but for us it was clear that there could not exist a hospital with the quality we aimed for, if we wouldn’t be present at all stages of life and without a unit of palliative care”, reminded Isabel Vaz, the Luz Saúde CEO. “This book contains the stories of many people that this hospital has helped, showing that life is worth living until the end, and what is our role as society, as citizens and as responsible in this sector so different from others. For almost 15 years now, we are making the difference in the life of many. Congratulations, Isabel, it has been a great privilege to trace this path with you”, she concluded. “This book is, essentially, the portrait of 30 years of Palliative Care. Thirty years ago, that portrait was a caricature of what was nonetheless achieved today – and Isabel Galriça Neto has a lot to do with that”, stated Paulo Portas in his intervention. “Besides her own account as a doctor, this book contains 18 narratives that are worth reading: narratives sometimes difficult, other times extraordinary, sometimes explanatory, other times emotional or surprising. At the end of each narrative, there is always an acknowledgement, a reading recommendation and a bibliographical database. Which has to do with the first term of the title: Science, which has always been the method of its author. Palliative Care is a medical discipline, a scientific discipline more and more necessary in this country”, he explained. The former leader of CDS (Democratic Social Centre) further reminded, a propos, the fundamental contribution of Isabel Galriça Neto as deputy, in the elaboration of laws concerning Palliative Care, Living Will, Caregivers Statute, and Rights of People with Serious Diseases. Also the President of the Republic highlighted how the physician “has been extremely important for the life of thousands of people, among patients and families” and “in the opposition to the prevailing opinion” that Palliative Care has no place in Medicine: “We owe it to Isabel Galriça Neto that stubbornness” in claiming the opposite, as well as “the joy of making people’s lives happy, within what is possible”. At the end of the event, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa inaugurated a photography exhibition, which will be open to the general public in the interior garden of Hospital da Luz Lisboa, with images of the daily activity in the Unit of Palliative and Continuing Care, that celebrates in 2022 its 15th anniversary. The exhibition also presents the testimonials of different professionals and personalities that have been working and collaborating with this unit.
