Integralne rozumienie osoby ludzkiej jako podstawa opieki paliatywnej

The human being is a person from the moment of conception to the natural death and because of that he or she acquires the right to the affirmation of the human dignity at every stage of his or her life. Taking care of the terminally ill people who are in the last stage of their lives has been practised for centuries. This is due to the love of another human being and the desire to provide a widely understood support in the last moments of their life. However, the contact with a person who is about to end his or her life is undoubtedly a very difficult experience which requires extraordinary sensitivity, empathy and, above all, an integral understanding of what the human being is. Any kind of a simplified and reduced approach towards a person hinders or completely prevents the whole affirmation of the human dignity and, as a result, renders a proper care for a person who is totally dependent on other people much more difficult. The integral understanding of the human nature guarantees accurate approach to him or her at every stage of their life, especially during the terminal illness and it should perceive the human being as an entity of the body and the soul as well as an individual in a relationship with other people or the society. However, it seems that it is important, especially in palliative care, to affirm a person in his or her complexity of the natural and the supernatural dimension (mutual complementation of nature and grace) as well as the earthly and the eternal life (from the eschatological point of view). In this way the palliative care is not limited just to the somatic or psychological dimensions but it also deals with other dimensions that are extremely important from the angle of the borderline experience of life and death.