Franca Benini, Head of the Veneto Regional Center for Pain Therapy (TD) and Pediatric Palliative Care (CPP), Padua; Cristiano Ferrario, Professor of Oncology at McGill University, Montreal. Introduction and moderation by Marco Maltoni, Medicina e Persona, Director of the Palliative Care Unit of Romagna, President of the association “Sul sentiero di Cicely”

Having an “incurable” disease does not coincide with being in an “untreatable” condition, meaning it is always possible to care for a person with a disease, even when chronic and progressive, or with disabilities. The care of life does not provide the sick person with an automatic answer to the “why” that arise, particularly to the “why” they found themselves in such a dramatic condition, which they did not choose. Care relationships can, however, support the patient’s freedom in searching for meaning and the essential, a search that often erupts in a cry in moments characterized by such suffering that it can be annihilating. In the “common vulnerable humanity,” as the nurse founder of palliative care Cicely Saunders said, the condition of those being cared for and those who care promotes a path of searching, which can become acceptance of the present moment and the blossoming of hope within a limit. It is as if certain “constraints,” rather than limiting the expression of freedom, put it in the best conditions to express itself. The initiator of Italian Pediatric Palliative Care Franca Benini, and palliative oncologist Cristiano Ferrario will recount how, in their experience, there have been “care” of patients and families where a fascinating relationship and gaze occurred.