THE hospital ward was decorated with colorful balloons and streamers as Catherine He, 80, lay on the bed surrounded by her husband, friends, nurses and doctors. Behind her on the wall were photographs she had taken over the years.

It was the 50th wedding anniversary for He and her husband, and her doctors and nurses decided to hold the couple’s celebration in the hospital.

Tortured by disease and aware that she was nearing death, He said she never expected her wish would be fulfilled in this small hospital ward.

She is among the hundreds of patients in terminal condition who have gone through a service at Yinbo Health Center in Pudong New Area in the past two years receiving what’s called “soothing care.”

Soothing care is similar in practice to hospice care or deathbed solicitude. It provides palliative care to improve the quality of life for patients, caretakers and loved ones. Intensive medical procedures are not part of the scheme.

“When death is expected, intense medical treatments or hands-on care tend not to make many changes. What the patients want is to ease their pain and other discomforts. Meanwhile, they want to feel peaceful and dignified during the last period of their lives,” the director of Yinbo Health Center, Xiong Xiangfeng, tells Shanghai Daily.

Rooms always filled

Opened in 2012, Yinbo Health Center is the first and the only trial hospital in Pudong for “soothing care.” The size of the department is limited — 10 hospital beds, three full-time doctors and five nurses, specially trained for death solicitude.

Covering an area of 350 square meters, the soothing care department is equipped with various rooms for the patients’ families and friends to talk and rest.

The beds for soothing care are always filled, leaving many patients waiting for a vacancy, Xiong says. Before taking a patient, doctors evaluation them. Due to the limited beds, only patients expected to live less than three months are allowed to get into the department. “Most of the patients who came for soothing care are in the terminal stage of cancer,” she says.

According to Xiong, by the end of this year, 14 hospitals in Pudong will start providing soothing care, supported by the district government.

Nurses are vitally important in this type of care. Unlike ordinary treatment, nurses spend large amounts of time chatting and getting to know the patients.

“Only staff members who are truly concerned about patients, who have constant communication, can find what they need to make them happy even in the overwhelming agony of death,” Xiong says.

Catherine He once told the nurses that she knew her husband through their common interest in photography and they had taken many nice pictures.

“This year is the 50th anniversary of our marriage and my husband is clearly not a romantic man. In my lifetime, I have never received red roses,” He says.

That’s where the wedding celebration idea came from. Two of He’s nurses, Jiang Shenzhen and Zhao Yinwen, arranged the celebration, including a small photograph exhibition of the couple and a bouquet of red roses for the husband. Since their son lives in America, they contacted him to make a video.

“I have been a nurse all my life dealing with diseases, but when I started to do soothing care, I finally saw the hospital is brimming with humanity,” says Zhao, the head nurse.

For Zhao and her peers dedicated to soothing care, this is an important step of healing that is missed by most hospitals.

“People always think that intense treatment shows concern for the patients. However not many people are willing to admit that instead of meaningless hands-on measures, spiritually oriented treatment and concerns of the caretakers are more advanced remedies,” Zhao says.

Zhao’s father died from gastric cancer. She still regrets that because her father couldn’t eat, she insisted on inserting a stomach tube. “All these efforts avail to nothing and actually he was in extreme pain,” she says.

In addition to the regular staff, the hospital uses volunteers in the department. Before taking care of patients, they go through training for soothing care.

“This is not an easy process,” says Xiong, the hospital director. “Not only for dealing with the patients but for a nurse’s personal mood, it can be tough.”

That’s because nurses become close to the patients. They know their life, their family and even some previously untold secrets.

Psychological support for nurses

“So when the patients die, they have to repress the sadness and placate the families. They calmly brush the patient’s hair and clean the body to maintain his/her dignity. But so many times, I see nurses crying alone in the bathroom,” Xiong says, adding that psychological therapy for very young nurses is necessary.

“When death approaches, people actually don’t know what to do. It is something you should learn, for both doctors and nurses, how to treat decently a dying man and release the pressure,” says Liu Hang, a volunteer in the department.

The biggest challenge of soothing care is the children of the patients, Xiong says.

“A small number of children think that when they put their parents in the hospital, they have no responsibility,” he says. “I can understand that a long illness will make even a filial child tired, but I hope the children can do better.”

The soothing care department also holds events for the families and caretakers of patients, helping them to talk and deal with their stress.