Challenges of Providing End-of-Life Care to Homeless Woman with Cancer and Mental Illness: A Case Report

Homelessness is one of the most complex and widespread societal problems in the modern world. Among the most impacted populations are women with mental illness. They lack a proper home and live on the streets, experiencing the most severe forms of abuse, violence, and severe health problems. These women are generally rescued and brought to the mental health hospitals for treatment by the public or police. Following the psychiatric evaluation, they receive a diagnosis of a mental illness, often a comorbidity of a terminal disease like cancer, which requires intensive treatment along with psychiatric treatment. This situation taxes the mental health care team in providing treatments for multimorbidity and after the course of treatment, finding hospice care centers, which are limited in number, thus posing a challenge. Hence, this case study aims to sort through the discourse of a homeless woman diagnosed with cancer and a mental illness. It also details the necessary steps the Psychiatric Social Work (PSW) team takes to enable end-of-life care, the challenges faced during this process, and policy recommendations to combat these challenges.