Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak about the hospice@HOME program which the District Nurses deliver in Tasmania. Growing old is no longer something that we do behind closed doors. It is something we do in our own communities and in our own homes, making our own choices and participating in society. The same can be said for end-of-life care. Seventy per cent of Australians want to die in the comfort of their own home, but unfortunately only 14 per cent do so. More than half die in hospitals and a third die in nursing homes. This needs to change, which is exactly what the District Nurses are doing in Tasmania through their hospice@HOME program. Earlier this month I had the pleasure of meeting with Fiona Onslow from the District Nurses who is working with Kim Macgowan to deliver in-home and community based end-of-life care in Tasmania. They have been delivering tailored hospice@HOME packages since 2014 and, thanks to their great work, palliative care has become more accessible for patients and their families.

Hospice@HOME is a pilot and is only being rolled out in Tasmania, but they have seen huge improvements and advantages when it comes to end-of-life care. Not only are families and patients fully supported, but hospital beds, acute wards and emergency departments that are at their capacity are being freed up. The achievements of hospice@HOME are significant: 46 per cent of hospice@HOME clients die at home, compared to about 14 per cent of the general Australian population; 50 per cent of clients who said they wanted to die at home fulfilled their wish; patients have been able to stay at home longer than ever before; the quality of life and care has been enhanced; and, as I mentioned, unnecessary and inappropriate use of ambulance services and emergency departments has been reduced.

The District Nurses and hospice@HOME are really leading the way, and their efforts are backed by strong evidence—so much so that they have recently been invited to the 21st International Congress on Palliative Care in Montreal, Canada, in October. What a wonderful achievement for these dedicated professionals. The hospice@HOME pilot is funded by the federal government until June 2017 under the Better Access to Palliative Care program. There has been no commitment or indication from the Tasmanian state government or the federal government to continue funding past June next year, which would see an end to the hospice@HOME packages in Tasmania.

During the election campaign, Labor made a commitment to invest $35 million in palliative care, which included a $2.3 million commitment to allow Palliative Care Tasmania to continue its important work. Palliative Care Tasmania's funding ends on 30 September, and there has been no commitment whatsoever from the Liberal government for funding past next month. Discontinuation of both hospice@HOME and Palliative Care Tasmania would be detrimental to the health sector, to the community and particularly to older Tasmanians and their families.

Further to this, in my home state of Tasmania, Labor committed $3 million for the creation of a ground floor 10-bed standalone hospice for Launceston to support palliative services. Currently, there are only four public beds available in Launceston for palliative care, in comparison to Hobart, which has 10 public beds available. The community and doctors, nurses and other health stakeholders who understand the community's desire to have a hospice in Launceston have backed this proposal. For too long families have watched their mothers, their fathers and their loved ones die at the Launceston General Hospital in an acute setting. This is unacceptable. This is just not good enough, and Tasmanians—particularly northern Tasmanians—deserve so much more. It is time that we took a bipartisan approach to this and backed this hospice. We know it is in the best interests of all northern Tasmanians to have the ability to enter into a standalone hospice.

I would also like to place on record my thanks to Barb Baker, the chair of the Friends of Northern Hospice in northern Tasmania, for her tireless work. She and her committee have campaigned for over 10 years for this hospice. At the last election Labor made a commitment of $3 million so that this could become a reality. I am calling on this government to listen to what older Australians and the community are saying. They want to have better options and alternatives to what is currently available. (Time expired)