Achieving the promise: Universal access to palliative care

World Hos­pice and Pal­lia­tive Care Day on 11 Octo­ber, themed ​‘Achiev­ing the Promise: Uni­ver­sal Access to Pal­lia­tive Care’, high­lights the need for time­ly access and ear­ly recog­ni­tion of pal­lia­tive care needs.

Improv­ing these out­comes has been a key focus for Dr Peter All­croft, Clin­i­cal Lead for the Pal­lia­tive Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work, whose work focus­es on cross-spe­cial­ty col­lab­o­ra­tion to sup­port patients approach­ing end-of-life.

Edu­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment are cen­tral to this mission.

Explor­ing end-of-life care through art

One exam­ple of this is CEIH’s ​‘The Kathryn Houri­g­an End-of-Life Project’ which used art to fos­ter reflec­tion, con­nec­tion and com­mu­ni­ty dia­logue around death and dying.

The project includ­ed an immer­sive res­i­den­cy by artist Daniel Con­nell with Flinders and Upper North Local Health Network’s (FUNL­HN) pal­lia­tive care ser­vice. By cre­at­ing por­traits and cap­tur­ing sto­ries that reflect the emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al dimen­sions of dying, Daniel’s work helped shift con­ver­sa­tions from being ill­ness-focussed to per­son-cen­tred, offer­ing a space for reflec­tion and connection.

Fol­low­ing the res­i­den­cy, a one-day forum was held in Port Augus­ta, bring­ing togeth­er health­care pro­fes­sion­als, artists and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. Pre­sen­ters includ­ed Dr All­croft, FUNL­HN pal­lia­tive care and renal nurs­es, Coun­try and Out­back Health and a local Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber liv­ing with chron­ic dis­ease, who shared her jour­ney of heal­ing and prepa­ra­tion for end-of-life.

Art’s impact is deeply per­son­al. As Vanes­sa, local res­i­dent and daugh­ter of a pal­lia­tive care patient, reflected:

“Meet­ing with Daniel allowed Dad to talk about his life’s expe­ri­ences as he is mov­ing into lat­er stages of his life… his por­trait has a pride of place in his room at Nerrilda.” 

The ​‘Kathryn Houri­g­an End-of-Life Project’ demon­strates how art can enrich pal­lia­tive care, offer­ing patients, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties spaces for reflec­tion, con­nec­tion and dig­ni­ty at life’s final stages.