Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to associate myself with the comments of all members on the motion proposed by the member for Kingston. It is interesting in life that we often do not think of death or the stages of dying until we are impacted upon at the family level where it becomes personal. I spent a period of my life working for an undertaker and I lived on the premises, which meant that I was in constant contact with people who had lost family members. Often those people would seek your advice or counsel because they had gone through a stage of watching somebody in their family pass away through a death that was unkind or painful. In sharing their thoughts, in some cases their guilt and in some instances the joy at having lost a family member who had suffered pain, the thing that I heard about consistently was the workers and staff in hospitals or hospices, who provided a level of care that made the last stages of life much easier. The ones that were most rewarding were those who took a family member home to care for them themselves in a loving environment in which they focused on giving them options to do things within the home instead of being hospitalised.

Last week, at the launch of National Palliative Care Week, that came back to me through its theme 'Palliative care is everyone's business: let's work together'. If we take that concept truly, we as families should be at every phase and stage of the life that exists of the person that we love. I listened to Peter King, who was interviewed by Trish Crossing, formerly an ABC radio personality. She asked him some questions about the stage of his wife's life in which cared for her at home. The thing that was enjoyable in that moment of his sharing of his pain, was the joy that he gave his wife through her being in surroundings that she had been familiar with. She had access to her children 24-7. She was in her home environment with external support. The quality of the time that they had together was an extremely powerful message that resonated with me, because in communities I have been associated with over the years I have seen where families come together in times of toughness but also in times of love. Palliative care plays an important and critical role in the lives of all of those who lose somebody early.

My breadth of knowledge became even greater, having had the funeral parlour experience for 4½ years, when I worked in health, where we looked at models of care for people needing palliative care. In all of those discussions, you centred on the person and looked at how you brought services together around that person. The problem in medical arenas and the health field is that sometimes people become an object for treatment. That has changed in recent times because of the very nature and the caring attitude of medical and allied health staff who provide multidisciplinary teams. I hope that, in the future, Australians will start to think about their death, about what it is that they want in their final stages of life, because it gives an indication to those around them what it is that you hope and desire to have happen. I know that when I come towards that stage of my life—I have already worked through in my mind what I want and I know the support that I will require—I want to enjoy that stage of my life as it ends, where I have quality time with my family, my wife, and those that I love and care for, because it should be celebrated like a birth. We celebrate a birth, but we never celebrate the life of somebody who is about to leave us. We should in the framework of palliative care provide the optimum opportunities for those who experience that journey together as families, friends and those we care for.

Debate adjourned.

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