In Switzerland, it would be wrong to reduce the question of the end of life to assisted suicide. On this Friday, October 7, World Palliative Care Day, we can highlight the progress made in the country on the subject with the example of Tara’s house, a center where residents are offered to die “like at home”.
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It is a pretty little building set in the countryside near Geneva. The interior looks like any other house. With its living room, dining room, kitchen and four bedrooms. All are occupied by people at the end of life. “We know that we will never replace the house but we are the alternative between their house and the hospital environmentintroduces Sabine Murbach, the director of Tara’s house. We can’t replace the hospital, but we’re going to offer the best and as far as possible what would look the most like their home. It’s a family environment.”
The difference with the hospital is that here, the residents make themselves at home, that is to say, they go out when they want. They share a meal in the dining room if they feel like it. They can even invite their family to sleep over several days. There are no restrictions, except for the state of health of the people welcomed, which is necessarily very fragile. “We have a notebook in which we mark what the resident has eaten, explains Gisèle, a volunteer at Tara’s house. Last Wednesday I had four residents who ate more or less and today no one ate. So the notebook remained empty and…” Gisele’s voice breaks. “It did something to me”, she finishes. It is volunteers like Gisèle who make the very existence of Tara’s house possible. There are around a hundred of them taking turns, night and day, to ensure a permanent presence with the residents. They stay on average one month at home before dying.
Be careful, this does not necessarily mean that we die “better” at Tara’s house. Hospital care is good in Switzerland, which has increased its palliative care units over the past ten years to manage its aging population. But like everywhere, caregivers lack one thing: time.
“The chance that we have here, as professionals, is that, unlike the hospital where, despite everything, there is still a structure with timetables, staff rotations, a time when we do often things one after the other, we here have time”highlighted ELisabeth Fontaine, nurse at the Maison de Tara.
“I’m never going to be pressured to say to myself, ‘My god, I don’t have time to stay with a resident, to hold their hand. On the contrary.’
Elisabeth Fontaine, nurse at Tara’s homeat franceinfo
“All these support prospects without having the pressure of time, it’s an added value for Tara”, says the nurse. Tara’s house actually responds to a wish of the Swiss. 70% say they want to die at home. In fact, it only happens in 20% of cases. The experience here in Geneva has, in any case, inspired other projects, particularly in France, where similar houses are about to see the light of day, in Agen, for example.