The Hospital de Poniente has several Patient Schools through which it continues to help patients from different areas from a different optimum. However, the health situation caused by the pandemic forced the suspension of the sessions scheduled for 2020.
One year later and in view of the fact that the face-to-face sessions may still take time to be able to return with the maximum guarantees, the Hospital de Poniente is preparing a new virtual version of all its Patient Schools, for which there will be confirmed dates shortly.
Meanwhile, the center is working on the creation of a website that allows both patients and professionals to access the resources and activities of the different schools that are running and those that are starting.
A website where you can find resources in the form of documentation, educational videos, experiences of other patients and validated links of interest. You will also find a calendar of scheduled activities of different kinds and the information to access them.
Thus, at the moment the Schools for Patients with Breast Cancer, Kidney Disease, Childhood Asthma, Non-oncological chronic pain, Psoriasis and ostomy patients are working on the preparation of activities.
However, the Hospital de Poniente plans to incorporate new classrooms that will be announced shortly.
In this sense, the main characteristic of the Patient Schools is that the teachers are people who have previously experienced the same disease, and the fact of treating as equals becomes decisive.
Breast cancer
Carmen María Ibáñez has been a nurse and care manager at the Hospital de Poniente and a teacher at the School for Breast Cancer Patients for seven years, practically the same time she was a breast cancer patient.
After more than a year without sessions, since the last was in November 2019, he is looking forward to getting these sessions back.
«The School helped a lot because it was like a gathering where we could share experiences. In the School of Patients we are the same and we are all in the same situation. We are all living the experience and it helps us to reflect on each other, since seeing a person who has the same as you, and seeing them strong and how keep going, it helps you a lot. We are a point of reference with each other ”, explains Ibáñez.
In this sense, the one who guides the session and tells about their experience is a person in full process or who has overcome it. “Fear, worry, physical discomfort, exhaustion after chemotherapy, are things that are easier to understand and help them when you have had it before,” emphasizes Ibáñez, who adds that in the end they become gatherings where they share tricks and that also serve to let off steam.
«Many issues are addressed that you do not comment on at home and because of the self-protection we have towards ours. If you look good or bad when you look in the mirror, you don’t tell your partner. You always try to swallow many things and the School helps you to quench those frustrations that you carry inside and between ourselves we help each other to better carry day to day, ”says Ibáñez.
In this sense, and despite the fact that an online Patient School is sometimes complicated to be able to connect with the patient and create that trust, it becomes, for the moment, the only viable alternative and a possibility that at least those encounters are recovered. .
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