Social Capital and Sustainable Health Care: An Analysis of Community Based Palliative Care Model of Kerala

Social Capital is the most crucial asset which significantly influence the efficacy and resilience of any community. Social capital is a dependent variable that depends upon the competence and coherence of the individuals in the community and mode of social relationships, trust and networks they maintain. It is one of the most sustainable social resources that originate from human relations and results on the mutual support of people. Utilization of Social capital has a wide applicability in the process of social inclusion, especially in dealing with the vulnerable and disadvantaged sections in the community itself. Voluntary organizations are very keen to utilize the social capital for community/social services and community development in a sustainable manner. Community based deinstitutionalized Palliative Care is one of the foremost among such organizations that made social capital in a strategic way for social inclusion and community well being. This paper analyses the extent to which different elements of social capital helps in initiating the sustainable community based palliative care movement by assessing the unique intervention strategies carried out by the palliative care. This paper explores conceptual questions of how social capital and voluntary community based services are correlated. A case study method was adopted for the study in which ten palliative care units were analyzed. The results show that a number of social capital elements are playing a vital role in the sustainability of community palliative care movement in Kerala.