Vale Kathryn Hourigan

It is with great sad­ness we share with you that our dear col­league Kathryn Houri­g­an, co-lead for the Pal­lia­tive Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work, died on Fri­day the 21^st of Feb­ru­ary, after a very short peri­od of illness. 

Kathryn was an incred­i­bly knowl­edge­able, respect­ed, thought­ful, a kind per­son and a great role mod­el for the many peo­ple who were priv­i­leged to work with her. We will miss her guid­ance, pos­i­tiv­i­ty and calm­ing pres­ence, both as a col­league and a friend.

Kathryn touched the lives of many, both direct­ly and indi­rect­ly by stand­ing up for those who couldn’t. We want to share some of her great achieve­ments, so we may hon­our the lega­cy she has left behind.

Kathryn was the first-ever con­sumer co-lead for a net­work, and embod­ied the strength, wis­dom and deter­mi­na­tion of a true community/​consumer leader.

Kathryn start­ed her remark­able pro­fes­sion­al career as a reg­is­tered nurse, with post­grad­u­ate stud­ies in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion. Kathryn became pas­sion­ate about the spaces that peo­ple were cared for in and she sub­se­quent­ly com­plet­ed her bachelor’s degree in archi­tec­ture, with a spe­cial inter­est in hos­pice design and ther­a­peu­tic envi­ron­ments. Kathryn under­took research and pro­vid­ed con­sul­ta­tion for health facil­i­ty design both nation­al­ly and internationally.

In her time at the CEIH, Kathryn utilised her exten­sive expe­ri­ence in lead­ing com­mu­ni­ties and advo­cat­ing for the voice of the con­sumer, to define a new role for con­sumers in co-lead­er­ship of net­works along­side clin­i­cians. She set a remark­able exam­ple, offer­ing sound coun­sel, for­ward vision and an unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to col­lab­o­ra­tion. Kathryn nev­er shied away from the dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions, believ­ing that dis­cus­sions about the end of life were not just impor­tant but necessary.

Kathryn’s dri­ve to pro­vide con­sumer per­spec­tives saw her involved in the co-design of projects such as: 

• SA Pal­lia­tive Care Nav­i­ga­tion Pilot 

• Grief and Bereave­ment Project 

• Pal­lia­tive Care Research Collaborative 

• South Aus­tralian Pal­lia­tive Care Strate­gic Framework 

As the con­sumer co-lead, Kathryn close­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with many peo­ple across the health sys­tem pro­fes­sion­als. Indi­vid­u­als have shared that they will remem­ber her as some­one who bought pos­i­tiv­i­ty and enthu­si­asm to all the work she col­lab­o­rat­ed on. Always a force for good, and always engag­ing and think­ing how to move forward.

Kathryn will be sore­ly missed by us all.

Vale, and our grate­ful thanks to a remark­able woman and leader in health.