EDINBURGH, Scotland, June 27 (UPI) -- A University of Edinburgh study hopes to help British healthcare workers be better able to help Sikh and Muslim patients have "a good death."
Aziz Sheikh, the professor leading the two-year study, said it will involve 20 to 25 terminally ill patients and those family members involved with their care.
"The introduction of palliative care into health care is a relatively recent phenomenon, and even now these services are mainly focused on the needs of elderly people dying from cancer," Sheikh said. "However, migrant communities in Britain are typically younger and have proportionately higher death rates from diseases not related to cancer."
Sheikh said that health care workers need to be trained in the "death rites" of different cultures, learning, for example, why large numbers of friends and relatives visit Sikh patients in their final illnesses or why a Muslim woman will keep a 24-hour vigil with her dying mother.
