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"Crumbs" given to the people of Orange who are in their final days
February 22, 2023
By Peter Holmes
Strange how things go sometimes.
On Tuesday morning at a media event at Orange Hospital, the state government promised an extra $3 million to expand palliative care at Orange Hospital from two beds to four.
But if the National Party members in attendance - upper house MP Sam Farraway on behalf of the state government, and Orange candidate Tony Mileto - were hoping for a pat on the back from the people behind the community group Push for Palliative, they may have been sorely disappointed.
So, was it a case of no good deed goes unpunished?
Or was the $3 million promised a mere drop in the bucket, bordering on an insult, a last-minute and purely political move aimed at keeping the palliative crowd silent ahead of the March state election?
At Tuesday night’s Orange City Council meeting Push for Palliative’s Jenny Hazelton, who has for years been driving the charge for expanded end-of-life care services in Orange, was in no mood to play nice when she addressed the 10 councillors (councillors Kevin Duffy and Jason Hamling were absent).
The $3 million was “disappointing”, she said. Increasing bed numbers from two to four “doesn’t address the issues”, and doesn’t supply what the group made clear was required in a submission to the government.
“This has seriously mobilised us,” she told the councillors. “What really pushed us off this year was the announcement in Tamworth. They already have six designated palliative care beds … they were allocated double [to 12].
“We’ve got nothing against that, go for it … but they also announced $21 million to build a hospice and that fired us up.
“We tried to do the right thing. We know there’s an election on, but … this need is above politics. This is a community issue that is ready to be dealt with.”
Hazelton is hopeful that land on the Bloomfield Health Campus could be made available for a stand alone hospice. But then more state and federal money would be required to build, staff and maintain it.
She said the group had held numerous meetings of late, including one on Tuesday with a senior palliative care manager for NSW Health in western NSW.
“We made it very clear … there should be a level playing field and rational decision making about the allocation of resources in rural NSW,” Hazelton said. “We don’t want any more than anyone else, but we’d like to have a slice of that pie.”
The two current palliative beds at Orange Hospital are generally for patients with only three to seven days to live, Hazelton said.
“The palliative care journey is this long,” she said, holding her hands apart, before placing them close together, “but the end of life journey is only this long.”
What is desperately required was a hospice that will “give people the opportunity to deal with a life-limiting illness” before going into end-of-life care.
“One of the things we’re very concerned about is young people - many times they end up in an aged care facility if they don’t die quick enough," Hazelton said.
"That sounds very brutal, but all of us [Hazelton and members of Push for Palliative at the council meeting] have had experiences with family members or close friends that have ended up in their 40s and 50s in an aged care facility, which is totally unsuitable.”
Hazelton’s speech to council, in support of a detailed submission made by Push for Palliative, appeared to raise council as a whole from its slumber on end-of-life care.
By this stage of the meeting there were only eight councillors in the chamber, as state election candidates David Mallard and Tony Mileto had left due to potential conflicts of interest, as palliative care is a state issue.
One by one those remaining spoke, some revealing personal stories, the type rarely shared in the chamber.
Councillor Steve Peterson, said: “As a medical doctor I’ve seen palliative care performed well and not so well. A dedicated unit with dedicated staff improves outcomes”.
Nurse and councillor Melanie McDonell followed and echoed Peterson’s views on the varying standards of palliative care in Australia. “This is vital,” she said of a hospice.
“I absolutely support this,” said councillor Frances Kinghorne, a pharmacist. “One of the ways we can assess what sort of society we are is how we treat our vulnerable people, and palliative care is a really big part of that.
“In my work I see people going through this process all the time and any support we can give, we should be doing it.”
She described the $3 million announcement by the state government as “a couple of crumbs by the local politician carrying on".
"We don’t want that, we want the whole lot," she added. "I think we need to lobby really hard for it because we deserve it as much as Tamworth, and we really need to look after people who are dying, and their families.”
Councillor Glenn Floyd said the two palliative beds at Orange Hospital were mostly utilised and that “a further facility is a must for this city”.
“We’ve just got to go ahead and do this.”
Councillor Jeff Whitton said: “In 20 years in local government - and I’ve heard Jenny speak many times - every time there's an election we hear, ‘We're going to do stuff’, and then it goes away. Everyone makes promises.
“There have been many groups fighting, fighting, fighting for this and we seem to have all the other mechanisms for life in place, but once somebody has a particular illness and they can’t be saved, we forget about them. Not as a society, but the system seems to.”
Whitton said the councillors “need to keep this up. We can vote for this tonight, but it has to become a priority. This should be in the top two priorities, if not the top”.
Councillor Tammy Greenhalgh then spoke, recalling the final days of her brother in law, who died last year from renal failure.
She said that when a bed finally became available at Orange Hospital’s palliative ward, he was only able to stay there for two days before nurses informed the family there was a more urgent need for the bed.
Greenhalgh told The Orange News Examiner that her brother in law was then moved into a shared hospital room, which denied family the chance to stay in the same room around the clock. After two days in a general ward he returned to the palliative ward, and died two days later.
“It’s just not good enough,” Greenhalgh said.
Deputy mayor Gerald Power followed, and asked: “Where is the duty of care to our loved ones, where they are comfortable and are part of it?
“When Jenny spoke it really touched a chord in myself, as an Indigenous person too, that we as people, as a community, as a council, need to make a mark in the sand and fight for our community and our loved ones [for] what is deservingly ours, and those who have paid taxes all of their lives to get to this point - we declare that these governments need to come to our city and start to pay up.”
Councillor Jack Evans was the final speaker. He said that although his experience with palliative care was limited, he had learned a lot listening to Jenny Hazelton and by speaking to councillors Peterson and Kinghorne. He too said it needed to become a top priority for council.
An 8-0 vote backed the staff recommendation to support the establishment of a palliative care hospice in Orange.
Now - yet again - we wait.