Palliative care is naturally person-centred care with a focus on quality of life and support for individual physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs. Compassion and valuing people as the person they are, rather than just the illness they have, is an important part of this approach. Palliative care includes involving the resident in decision-making and supporting quality of life. It also includes treating them with dignity, respect and having their identity, culture, and diversity valued and supported.

World Health Organisation defines Palliative an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.

Palliative care:

• provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms;
• affirms life and regards dying as a normal process;
• intends neither to hasten or postpone death;
• integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care;
• offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death;
• offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and in their own bereavement;
• uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated;
• will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness;
• is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.

Death and dying are a part of life. It will happen to us all one day, yet we often seem reluctant to think about, talk about, or plan for this stage in life, however doing so holds many benefits. It enables us to really think about what is important to us and how we want to live the remainder of our life. It also enables us to understand what the wishes and preferences of our loved ones might be, and how we can support their decisions.

Being open to a conversation about death is the best place to start. From there, expressing your wishes clearly and early will help to ensure your choices are respected.

When someone needs palliative care, it is important that they know what it is and how it can be accessed. Information about palliative care options and services can reduce fears and help with making decisions when facing the end of life.

People are different, so it is important that everyone has information, care, and support that meets their specific needs, regardless of their background or where they live.

Many different health professionals provide palliative care. Doctors, nurses, allied health workers and pastoral care workers all have a role to play in supporting people at the end of life. Palliative care is provided in hospitals and hospices, in your home, or in an aged care facility.

Family members and carers are an important part of the team in providing care according to the persons desired needs. Moreover, community members and work colleagues can all support people with needing palliative care and as well as supporting their family and carers.

As a specialist health field, palliative care draws upon a multidisciplinary body of evidence to support its practice. It helps us understand what models of care are effective. For clinicians and health professionals, this means using the best available evidence in combination with the individual resident’s circumstances and preferences when it comes to making care decisions. For families and carers, this means having access to best practice care with a focus on evidence-based support and services.

Compassion for the sick and suffering is something which unites us all. Many of us have accompanied friends or family as they face the fear and uncertainty of a serious illness. It also allows loved ones to spend quality time as they journey towards eternal life. Dying persons need to feel the love, care and compassion during the end stage of life and not think of themselves as a burden to others.

On the contrary, Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) which is proposed to be legalised in Queensland, steals from the dying person and his/her loved ones these precious moments.

Pope Francis has continued statements against physician-hastened death, stating that the practice is “false compassion” and a result of our “throwaway culture” that devalues and dehumanizes the sick. Catholic organizations are often in the lead in organizing against death with dignity laws.

There are concerns about the potential for legalised voluntary assisted dying to jeopardise vulnerable populations, be abused, expose health practitioners to professional risk, harm patients and families and erode trust in the medical profession.

We all play an important role to ensure that the dying person receives care, love, compassion, kindness, physical, emotional and psychological support till the end.

Sr Pauline