On a daily basis Palliative Care Victoria receives distressed calls from people seeking help for a person who is dying and suffering needlessly.
In hospitals, aged care facilities, and homes across Victoria people are dying difficult deaths without receiving palliative care and the support their carers need.
People dying in suffering should be given the same priority as a person experiencing a heart attack or other life-threatening event.Credit:Joe Armao
Inadequate training of health professionals in caring for the dying person creates a reliance on a small specialist palliative care workforce that cannot meet the current need.
The fact that too many Victorians are dying bad deaths is not news. A number of these difficult deaths have been the impetus for calls to legalise euthanasia.
Public attention has focused on the quest for euthanasia without giving adequate attention to the solution that 99 per cent of Victorians want – timely access to high-quality palliative care.
The reality is that many Victorians benefit from improved quality of life and die with dignity and in comfort with the support of palliative care. But we need to make this readily available to everyone. Many people don't know about palliative care, many are not referred, and gaps in services mean many miss out.
The Victorian Auditor-General highlighted the need to improve palliative care in his April 2015 report. The End of Life Choices Inquiry Report in June 2016 included 29 recommendations to improve palliative care.
Much of the focus of the Victorian government's response to the recommendations of the End of Life Choices Inquiry will be on its decision to introduce legislation that would legalise a physician-assisted death for terminally ill people who meet specific criteria. This will be welcomed by those who seek this.
However, the vast majority of Victorians do not want to die by a lethal dose of drugs. They want the right to choose and receive high quality palliative care.
People dying in suffering should be given the same priority as a person experiencing a heart attack or other life-threatening event.
Systemic failures to provide safe neonatal care or to meet ambulance emergency response times are addressed by governments as urgent priorities.
Similarly, systemic failures in caring for dying people deserve to be addressed by the Victorian government with as much urgency and priority. Euthanasia may become a choice but it is not the solution.
The solution requires substantial increases in funding to improve access to high-quality palliative care and end of life care across Victoria. It requires urgent and full implementation of Victoria's new policy framework as a priority along with the transparency of funding and service provision recommended by the End of Life Choices Inquiry.
Regrettably, increases in palliative care funding have declined in the last two years in spite of the recommendations noted above. Funding for palliative care in Victoria is around 1 per cent of expenditure on public hospitals. To implement the recommendations of the Auditor-General and the End of Life Choices Inquiry palliative care services need at least $50 million in additional funding each year, as well as substantial capital funding.
Without concerted and comprehensive action to address the systemic failures in how we care for people who are dying across Victoria there can be no genuine choice – we could only hang our heads in shame and mourn the loss of a truly compassionate society.
Odette Waanders is CEO of Palliative Care Victoria.