Palliative care has only 1% access in India because doctors don’t consider palliative care even when a patient is terminally ill and caregivers just aren’t aware. Hence, both audiences are critical. Among doctors, any doctor involved in the treatment of terminally ill patients in any way became our target audience.

To bring alive the need for palliative care, this compelling film features nurses, who recollect real last words they have heard from dying patients. From pleasant memories to truly heart breaking ones, the film captures the many moods of the nurses as they narrate the last words. Packing an emotional punch, the film ends on the super… “Most last words are heard by nurses, not family.” The supers bring to life the need to offer palliative care that will help a dying patient go peacefully in the presence of family and with much needed dignity in death.

In India, prescription drugs can only be promoted to doctors. This communication is governed under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and a self-controlled body – ASCI. Doctor-patient communication is also governed by the MCI's ethics policy, which prevents the endorsement of brands but allows unbranded medical information or diagnosis.

This film brought alive the real last words of terminally ill patients as heard by more than 200 nurses across India. When we experienced the raw power of the real last words, we realised that the direction had to be minimalistic. In fact, once the nurses started sharing their experiences, we realised the process was cathartic for them, releasing their pent-up emotions. So the film directed itself, with the role of direction being only to make them comfortable and capture their emotions.

Simultaneously, care was taken to portray them as ordinary people who were just as deeply touched by death as any of us. Since the film required extreme close-ups of non-professional actors, capturing these emotions was no small task.

Put together in a non-linear narrative style, last words packed an emotional punch that gave a new direction to the way palliative care would be viewed.

The Indian medical system focuses on keeping patients alive, even at the cost of pain and suffering. So, even when patients are terminally ill, doctors don’t consider palliative care. Instead, doctors keep these patients in ICUs where they do receive the best medical care but are also isolated from their families.

With doctors, driving the behaviour change towards palliative care is therefore difficult – they do what they think is best for the terminally ill patient, but the campaign had to question their existing behaviour.

Culturally, even talking about death is taboo in India. Starting conversations on palliative care in this scenario is a challenge.

Finally, the family unit in India is very strongly bound together – to even imagine that one’s last words would not be heard by family is therefore deeply impactful.