THE need for palliative care services in Orange could be raised in state parliament in the next sitting period after Labor MP Trish Doyle met with members of Push for Palliative on Thursday.
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The member for Blue Mountains has raised palliative care issues in NSW parliament on previous occasions and met with several members of the Orange group to hear their concerns about the lack of resources and funding.
Although a date for the issue to be raised is yet to be confirmed, she hopes to bring the information before parliament before it finishes for the year.
“I will take back some of the statements of what some of the people have told me,” Ms Doyle said.
“They have told me a couple of anecdotal stories of there being a space in the new hospital for palliative care that there are beds but there’s never been resources to provide proper palliative care, some of those personal stories provide the evidence for what is needed.”
Ms Doyle said the byelection for the state seat of Orange also made it a good time to raise the issue.
Push for Palliative secretary Joe Maric said Orange does not have a designated palliative care unit. As a result he said some patients are sent to Gosling Creek Aged Care facility and others are sent to Molong, Blayney and Canowindra when beds were not available in Orange.
He said there are three palliative care nurses and a part-time doctor who do palliative care work in Orange.
However, he said at least one doctor is needed as well as an extra seven palliative care nurses.
“One more doctor wouldn’t be ideal but it would be massively helpful, two would be able to deal with the crisis that we are dealing with at the moment,” he said.