Recently we have heard and read a lot about palliative care locally and I feel the need to respond to Nicole Kuter's article in this newspaper (CWD, December 20, 2014).
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mr Colin Begg, the chairperson of the Orange Health Service Community Consultative Committee stated that a designated palliative care ward was not what was needed in Orange. That may well be Mr Begg's opinion, but that certainly is not my opinion, nor that of many others.
I also disagree that one of the 47 private wards (assuming one happens to be available) would be adequate for someone who was destined to die in hospital.
What then, is 'adequate'? In the 1980s when the palliative care service was established in Orange, a group of volunteers saw the need for hospice or palliative beds.
Those volunteers were looking to the future. The community responded swiftly and generously: suitable wards were soon up and running and stayed in constant use for more than 20 years.
My own family had unexpectedly occupied one of those wards for a few days and that facility provided privacy, quiet, comfort and space for family to to be there, day or night.
Friends and neighbours could come and say their goodbyes and share the laughter or tears. There were not ringing telephones, no trolleys trundling by, no curious faces peering in.
The nursing staff were unobstrusive, compassionate and efficient, and the whole atmosphere preserved the dignity of death.
For some people who choose to die at home, for a variety of reasons may make it impossible to stay there, even with the help of palliative nurses, but to expect to die in a room attached to a hospital's busy, inevitably-noisy general ward with no privacy and no space for family is a huge backward step, imposing further emotional and physical burdens on all involved, including already-busy staff.
I do hope that members of the public who are concerned about palliative care accept Mr Begg's invitation to be at the community consultative committee meeting on February 23 and take that opportunity to express those concerns.
The meeting will also allow the community to learn who constitutes the membership of this committee and what knowledge, skills and experience they bring to decision-making in this very important facet of health delivery for the Orange region. Decisions which are certainly bound to affect every one of us at some time or another in some way or other.
Dorothy Arnold, Orange