Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week was Palliative Care Week, and it gives me the opportunity to acknowledge and pay tribute to Ipswich Hospice Care, a wonderful facility in my electorate.

Like many in this place I had the pleasure of attending a breakfast held by Palliative Care Australia last week. I want to acknowledge the terrific work of Palliative Care Australia, and I am happy to say that the CEO, Dr Yvonne Luxford, has been a regular visitor to my office over many years. She is a fierce advocate for palliative care. I congratulate her and her new team on their new logo and branding.

The theme for Palliative Care Week 2014 was 'Palliative care everyone's business: let's work together'. It is important to appreciate all of the different people involved in palliative care, to encourage people to think about what their role may be and to honour and respect what they do.

At that recent breakfast we heard from some wonderful people who have been involved in palliative care. There was a husband whose wife died from breast cancer who then went on to care for his mother-in-law at the end of her life. There was the mother whose son had a life-limiting condition that extended beyond a prognosis of a few months when he was born to 17 years of age. She was so inspired by her experience she is now a palliative care nurse. And we heard from Dr Sarah Winch, an experienced nurse, healthcare ethicist and sociologist from Queensland, whose own husband passed away at just 48 years of age—just four months after being diagnosed with kidney cancer that had spread throughout his body. She has produced a practical and personal book called Best Death Possible: a guide to dying in Australia, which speaks to those who are dying. It is a $15 book with which I highly recommend many of us to become familiar.

Palliative care is an issue which affects all of us at some point in our lives—that may be as a patient or a carer, as a family member or a friend. It is a fact: we all will die. It is a natural part of life, and palliative care is and should be a natural part of health care—as natural as childbirth or emergency care. Yet it is difficult for most Australians to have that conversation with those closest to us about our final stages of life. Indeed, I can say from my many years as a lawyer I have observed that it is even difficult for people to make wills, powers of attorney or even advanced health directives. Many of us do not understand what palliative care is all about and many Australians do not really want to know.

I have heard people say they feel as though palliative care is about giving up on life; it is not. The aim of palliative care is to improve the quality of life for people living with a life-limiting illness by providing care that recognises their many and individual needs, including physical, emotional, social, cultural and spiritual. Further, palliative care supports the person's family and carers during their illness and in bereavement.

My own electorate of Blair is home to a wonderful facility. Ipswich Hospice Care is a seven-bed healthcare facility providing quality palliative care to terminally ill people and their families in a caring, home-like environment. The centre is run with professionalism and compassion by Ros Holloway and supported by a terrific team. I congratulate them on their recent silver-service luncheon for 40 members of the National Seniors Association Ipswich Branch organised by Dana McKerrow, a student at Bremer TAFE ably supported by the staff and students at that TAFE. A. It was an honour to be there to see the great work they do—not just the students but Dana and all the people from Ipswich HOSPICE CARE.

According to Palliative Care Australia: 75 per cent of Australians would prefer to die at home, but less than 25 per cent do; 70 per cent of people who die each year would benefit from palliative care services yet only 20 per cent do; less than 15 per cent of people who died in residential aged care in 2011-2012 were assessed as needing palliative care before they died; and, more than 50 per cent of people who lost a loved one recently had not discussed end of life care with them, and their family were not confident to carry out the wishes of their loved one.

Palliative care needs to become an integral part of our healthcare system and our aged care mix. It is important for all of us to have that conversation and turn it into adequately funded social policy. We want to live well. And most of us, if we are honest, want to die well. So it is important we think about what our role may be and have that conversation with our family. Remember, for all of us, family and friends, palliative care is everyone's business.