News from Angola – Bad News Management was the topic of debate in the second edition of the “Health in Conversations Circle” project, which took place on Friday in Luanda.
By Amilton Victor
The Debate aimed to improve health communication at an intra-hospital level, and find solutions to the growing complaints from patients about the lack of harmonization on the part of healthcare professionals.
The event, which had the participation of Civil Society and Health professionals, the speakers analyzed the topic “how to transmit Challenging Diagnoses”.
In the conversation, the participants discussed the difficulties of communicating bad news and managing its impact, both due to the fear of facing the emotional and physical reactions of the patient and their family and due to the difficulty of health professionals themselves in managing their feelings. and emotions.
Speaking to Notícias de Angola, Ludmila Rangel, mentor of the “Saúde em Roda de Conversa” project, and CEO of Akilah Medic, highlighted that “communication is the most important point to avoid bad practices in the Health sector”.
“It is important to study how the healthcare technician should convey bad news, who will convey it to and how patients can manage the information of a challenging Diagnosis”, he reinforced.
The Dean of the UPRA Faculty of Health Sciences, António Armando, highlighted, during the debate, more empathy and appropriate forms of interaction between the doctor and the user.
“The doctor must understand the patient as a whole. Prepare it before informing him. The information must be detailed, this is where we sometimes sin”, she highlighted.
António Armando, on the other hand, said that poorly communicated information can generate irreversible problems.
For his part, the Master in Health and Teacher, in Brazil, Diego Lima, in his opinion, the patient is worthy of care, the doctor must understand and internalize the bad news and then inform it safely.
According to the view of Jurist Adalberto Loqueni, he argues that the Angolan legal system, the poor management of diagnostic information brings with it a series of disciplinary measures ranging from the simplest to the most serious, in the view of Jurist Adalberto Loqueni.
The jurist, during his intervention, highlighted three types of sanctions that health professionals incur in cases of poor management of patient information, such as disciplinary, civil and criminal, the latter being the most serious.
The experts highlighted and called for health institutions to regularly promote refresher courses for their professionals on gender issues.
Stakeholders call for the introduction of Bad News Management as a Subject in the school curriculum.
The “Health in Conversation Circle” Project is part of the executive’s efforts to improve intra-hospital health communication, addressing relevant topics, informally and in a relaxed environment with health professionals and the general public.
