Tuesday, 26 March 2024
    Palliative care nurses promote end of life care
    31
    May
    Health Care

    Palliative care nurses promote end of life care

    What does it mean to have a good death?

    It's something many of us would prefer not to think about, yet it's the one thing we're all guaranteed to experience, ABC News notes.

    Faye Tomlin and Emma Graham are palliative care nurses in central Queensland who are on a mission to take the fear out of dying and encourage more people to talk about it.

    There's probably no-one more vulnerable than someone whose life is about to end.

    But the worry Ms Tomlin sees most in her patients is less about dying itself and more about their regrets in life.

    "If you're headed towards death and you don't feel your peace, then that is something to fear," Ms Tomlin said.

    "What we try to do is allow a person to be vulnerable to themselves in the last moment of their life with a compassionate heart through kindness — not to tell them whether they're right or wrong, but to simply say, 'We understand'."

    Also known as end-of-life care, palliative care nurses become involved with patients as early as their diagnosis, as well as throughout their treatment, and stay with them until they draw their last breath.

    Ms Tomlin and Ms Graham work in nursing facilities, hospitals and occasionally private homes, because in Rockhampton there is no dedicated hospice, something a community group is actively campaigning to change.

    Ms Tomlin has been a palliative care nurse for a decade in a nursing career that's spanned over a quarter of a century.

    She's taken hundreds of people on their final journey and to her it's the "greatest privilege".

    Part of what Ms Tomlin and Ms Graham do is discuss care options, including medical interventions, with patients so they're fully informed.

    "Our role … is to make sure the person is empowered to make their own choice and to also ensure that whatever choice is made, that door to palliative care is never closed," Ms Tomlin said.

    "When people understand what their choices are, whatever lies ahead isn't as frightening."

    FULL STORY

    Palliative care nurses want end-of-life care to become part of everyone's health journey (ABC News)

    PHOTO

    Rockhampton palliative care nurses Emma Graham and Faye Tomlin hope to normalise discussions about dying.(ABC Capricornia: Michelle Gately)