Patients with incurable cancer want to be informed about their disease and its treatment, but must also maintain hope. This inner conflict can affect how they process information about their prognosis.
It’s illegal to discuss voluntary assisted dying via telehealth, which means people who live in rural areas and those who can’t physically go to see a doctor may not be able to access the scheme.
All of us face loss and the reality of our own mortality. Whether through in-person discussion or over social media, let’s build communities that support people navigating death and dying.
Palliative care is often seen as a ‘last resort’ rather than a service that empowers terminally ill people to live as well as possible for as long as possible.
Grieving the queen’s passing can be different to grieving the loss of someone we were close to. It’s also complicated by politics, colonialism and the contest about who she really was.
When you prepare to talk about end-of-life decisions and the legacy you want to leave behind, try thinking about them as gifts you bestow to family and friends.
Ben White, Queensland University of Technology; Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology, and Marcus Sellars, Australian National University
Interviews with 32 doctors who provided voluntary assisted dying services in Victoria found layers of bureaucracy made it difficult for patients to access the system. Some died while waiting.
Palliative care is about living well and meeting patients’ goals, but referral can be more complex than access to medical assistance in dying (MAID). Palliative care should be as accessible as MAID.
Terminally ill research participants wanted to have the option of assisted dying if they needed it, and felt they knew best when the time was right for them to die.
The only chaplain in the COVID-19 section of a Montréal hospital offers spiritual care to patients and families, as well to staff, who have found themselves more intimately exposed to life and death.
Many people might want to choose how, when, and under what circumstances they die – but diseases like dementia can complicate advance euthanasia directives.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne