Dr Joe McGirr says it’s a ‘shame’ the Palliative Care Task Force has not been established. Photo: Chris Roe.
There is an urgent demand for palliative care specialists in an ageing population in regional Australia that is not being met, experts warn.
“The state hasn’t established its Palliative Care Task Force as it was supposed to have established under the 2022 rural report,” Wagga MP Joe McGirr said.
“So it’s a bit of a shame.”
Palliative care is treatment, care and support for people battling life-limiting illnesses.
It does not entail euthanasia or assisted suicide, but strives to reduce the stress and suffering patients face, thereby improving their quality of life.
Dr McGirr, a strong advocate for improved and continued access to palliative care, recounted a horror story and “things we do not like to talk about” from nurses and midwives in parliament on Wednesday (14 May).
He recounted a story about an elderly patient who got lost during one of Wagga’s coldest winter nights.
“There were not enough staff to look for her. There were no police on call and there was no suitable response from Health’s security team. That night, the nurses on duty did the only thing they could: They phoned and woke a colleague who was at home and asked them to find and return the wandering patient,” he said.
In a strained rural healthcare system, nurses were often required to take over tasks like preparing food or making deliveries, taking attention and time away from caring for patients.
The Forrest Centre Hospice opened in Wagga in 2018, giving Riverina residents access to slow-stream palliative care.
“That certainly provides a sort of long-term facility, whereas the Palliative Care unit in Calvary is a more acute palliative care unit, I think that provides quite a comprehensive service for palliative care in Wagga,” Dr McGirr said.
“I’m not sure how far its reach is outside of Wagga and I think in more remote areas of the state, access to palliative care can still be difficult.
“There are some good models of palliative care elsewhere, particularly in the western region.”
Barriers patients face when seeking palliative care generally fall within administrative issues, according to the Department of Health and Aged Care, including lack of clear advance care planning, late transferrals or referrals and confusion among staff over task delegations.
“Thirty-four per cent of Australians aged over 65 live in rural and remote areas of Australia. People in rural areas have higher burdens of disease, shorter life spans and poorer access to services,” Joe Jooper, CEO of the Australia New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine (ANZSPM) said.
“When approaching the end of life, people living in rural Australia want to be supported to die in the country, close to home, and with their loved ones near, so we seriously need to do something about the specialist workforce, and we need to do it now,” Mr Hooper said.
Dr McGirr intends to support the partnership through advocating with the health district for better funding and resources.
“We actually have a pretty good system set up in Wagga in the partnership between the local health district and Calvary for the combined, you know, the integrated planning of the community teams and the inpatient unit at Calvary for public and private patients,” he said.
“We actually have good services in Wagga [but] they could always be improved. We could always do with more funding, but we have a very good model here.”
