OF LIFE’S two certainties, only one tends to dominate conversations just now.
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“When we’re in an election we really spend a lot of time talking about taxes, but it’s now time to talk about death and dying,” Country Women’s Association national president Dorothy Coombe said on the Border this week.
“We need to spend as much time talking about that to enable the wishes of the ones we love as they come to the end of their journey in life.”
Ms Coombe helped Palliative Care Australia president Patsy Yates and Health Minister Sussan Ley launch the Dying to Talk Discussion Starter, a new resource to support people through difficult topics.
The guide encourages people to reflect upon what would be important to them in the event of serious illness.
As the pamphlet points out, “talking about dying won’t kill you”.
Professor Yates said National Palliative Care Week, May 22-28, aimed to highlight the importance of this treatment.
“Death is one of those things that happens to us all,” she said.
“We truly believe that palliative care is one critical piece of the health care system that really must be right in any sort of just society.”
Ms Ley, whose mother was a palliative care nurse, said life and death patterns had changed dramatically in 100 years, with nearly 40 per cent of deaths occurring after the age of 85, up from less from five per cent in 1900.
“Which makes it easier, you would think, to plan a good death at the end of a good life,” she said.
“However conversations about dying are generally ad hoc and remain largely taboo.”
Ms Coombe said nobody, not even younger people, should avoid such discussions.
“It is much easier, so much easier for the family to feel they are doing the right thing during what is a sad, emotional, heartbreaking and really tough time in people's lives,” she said.
“To have people at home, surrounded by their social network, by their family, by the people who love and support them the most, that's the way to go.”