If you’re interested, you can register via the link below.

If you’re interested, you can register via the link below.
It’s a couple of years old now, but still good…. Here is the introduction to an article in the Conversation about how Australians need support to die at home. Should be mandatory reading for politicians and health service policy makers!
“The baby boomers are growing old and in the next 25 years the number of Australians who die each year will double. People want to die comfortably at home, supported by family and friends and effective services.
But more than half of Australians die in hospital and about a third die in residential care. Sometimes they have impersonal, lingering and lonely deaths; many feel disempowered.
Grattan Institute’s Dying Well report sets out how we can improve the quality of dying in Australia. With an investment of A$237 million, we can double the number of people who are supported to die at home – and the same amount could be released from institutional care spending to pay for it.”
I’d vote for it!
Read more here
Here at Palliverse, we love online communities of practice. The monthly #PallANZ tweet chat, co-hosted by Palliverse and Palliative Care Australia, is not the only online educational opportunity that may be of interest this week. While we hope you join us for Thursday evening’s #PallANZ discussion of advance care planning, you might also like to check out the following exciting events: Continue reading
‘The wisdom of the dying’ has perhaps become a cliché nowadays. A Google search using those few words returns around 39 million results.
But what I am really curious about, are the few words that really pierced your heart or absorbed your mind; those simple words that affected your spirit in a profound way.
Heart Connection by Alisa Looney. Photo by Nancy Regan, taken in Puyallup, Washington, used under Creative Commons licence.
Ed: Thank you David and Caresearch for allowing us to share this post focusing on ways to enhance primary palliative care for general practitioners. We at Palliverse agree that dialogue around the GPs role in palliative care is timely and important. We would welcome further contributions on this topic.
Hi everybody. I am a GP of 25 years’ experience. I deal a lot with aged care and palliative care. I recently completed a Clinical Audit on end-of-life care through Decision Assist. I wrote a short piece for Caresearch about doing the Audit for Decision Assist as I found the process of reflecting on my practice and looking at changes very worthwhile. Here is what I wrote.
Advance care planning is an important process that is increasingly being taken up by our community. When done well, it can help those with serious illnesses take control of their future health care. However, many people in our community still do not know about advance care planning, which means those who are likely to benefit from the process are missing out.
How can we do better? Continue reading
It had all happened so fast, much too fast. Unwell on Tuesday, into hospital on Wednesday. It was all bad news, he was told that he had only possibly a week or two to live. Confronted with his imminent mortality he decided to go to Hospice. He was worried about how his family would cope with him at home, he wanted to make sure that they would be looked after.
They had always done everything together as a couple, right from when they were teenagers. They had made all the important decisions together. But when it came to the decision to go to Hospice he had made it on his own.
Photo by Glen Carrie
Since arrival she had been very anxious and spent most of the first few days alone in her room. “I don’t want to interact with anyone, please leave me alone, keep the curtains closed and the lights off” – like a hermit crab withdrawing deeper into her shell.
Worsening pain had brought her to us, severe physical pain, the result of increasingly bad news about the toll her disease was taking on her body over the past six months, and also likely emotional pain as evidenced by worsening anxiety. Despite the team’s best attempts at connecting she remained aloof and guarded, sleep being a source of solace.