Thank you for the opportunity to comment on palliative care service arrangements with Queensland Health.
Karuna Hospice Service provides specialist hospice-in-the-home services to people who live in a geographic area that stretches from 10 kms south of the Brisbane River to the Glass House Mountains. The area includes Redcliffe and Bribie Island. The western boundaries run from Corinda, to Mt Nebo and Woodford. During 2004-5 we provided care for 268 new patients and their families as well as 419 bereaved carers in this geographic area.
Karuna is part of a home hospice consortium that also provides services to the Sunshine Coast (Cittimani Hospice Service) and Gympie (Little Haven). The consortium provides free high level palliative care to dying people and their families from a funding base made up of government funding, community fundraising and donations. Our model includes:
- Advanced practice palliative care nurses with 24 hour on call service
- Collaborative care with palliative care medical Consultants and GP’s
- Counsellors for terminally ill patients and their families (this frequently includes children of dying parents)
- Spiritual care
- Trained volunteers who provide in-home respite care and social support
- Loan of home nursing equipment
- A 12 month bereavement support program for people with normal grieving
- Psychological services for people with abnormal and complex grief
- Carer Education
The above services are all provided free to the client family.
In addition Karuna provides
- Education to other health professionals
- Education to the community.
- Psycho-social and spiritual support to people with needs related to dying and loss but who do not need admission to home hospice care.
Our services assist between 58% to 75% of patients to die at home, depending upon the availability of visiting GP’s. These figures are well above the national average for home deaths.
Karuna works collaboratively with hospital based palliative care teams at Royal Brisbane Hospital, The Prince Charles Hospital, Redcliffe, Princess Alexandra, and Mater hospitals. We are a major referral point for the Wesley and Holy Spirit Hospitals, and Greenslopes for patients who live on the north side of Brisbane. We also enjoy a collegiate relationship with Mt Olivet who provide in-patient hospice services and consulting to the domiciliary services.
In addition, Karuna is contracted to manage the state-wide Palliative Care Information Service (PCIS) which is a 1800 telephone information and referral service. PCIS maintains an extensive data base of palliative care and other health and support networks across the state.
We would like to offer comments on a number of issues confronting palliative care services under the headings of structure, funding, collaborative partnerships and workforce before concluding with some suggestions for the future.
Continue reading ‘A Submission to the Queensland Health Systems Review’
