Rachel Menzies is talking about death anxiety. She will be the guest of the Grief and Bereavement team, Sutherland Hospital, Sydney, speaking at their online National Palliative Care Week event on May 22 from 2-3pm. It will be held online via Teams. Rachel is co-author of the book How the … Read more
by Sandra Moon. This article was updated on April 13, 2023. It discusses end of life conversations. ‘I feel his organs are shutting down,’ my mother said on the phone. But how? Two days before Mum had rung me to ask for help getting Dad to the emergency ward at … Read more
This article was updated on March 11, 2023. It discusses death and palliative care in nursing homes. We’re still hearing uncomfortable stories from readers about the deaths of their elderly in nursing homes. Sometimes only a little thing went wrong, making the family sad for the dying person, and undoing … Read more
This article was updated on March 9, 2023. It discusses a final farewell. Today we’d simply like to share a lovely, very real story by our LinkedIn connection Christine Pedley who lives at Ferntree Gully, Victoria. Christine has been an authorised marriage celebrant for 11 years. She “co-creates ceremonies that … Read more
Join us on February 9, as I and other guest speakers share our stories, knowledge, and experience about legal considerations, managing grief and bereavement, the benefits of memorialisation, as well as the importance of having ‘those’ conversations. Following the presentation, morning tea will be available along with the opportunity to … Read more
After Maya Roffler’s brother was killed in 2016 she decided to develop The Surviving Siblings podcast to support siblings. “I realized after losing him in 2016 to a homicide and struggling for years after that there is little to no support for surviving siblings,” Maya says. Since then she has … Read more
This article was updated 20 October, 2022. It features Dr Katrin Berger’s thoughts on pain management at the end of life. When Dr Katrin Gerber shared her thoughts about the important topic of pain management at the end of life, it brought back many memories. My mother died in a … Read more
This article was updated on 2 September, 2022. It discusses preferences of places to die. The work of Dr Katrin Gerber has caught our eye. This is because whenever the question comes up about choosing where someone wants to die, it can be hard to gauge accurately, and Katrin has … Read more
This article on advance care planning and dementia patients was updated on 23 August, 2022. A patient who doesn’t have legal capacity because of dementia, even the early signs of it, can’t sign documents such as wills and the assigning of their power of attorney. But what about their advance … Read more
This article was updated 3 August, 2022. Palliative care advocates, this one’s for you, as a new palliative care community of practice has been announced by NSW Health. And what’s better, they are calling for participants for their palliative care community of practice. This is incredibly important work as Covid … Read more
This story first appeared in the June 16, 2022 issue of our Good Grief! newsletter. What is pharmacy’s role in improving palliative care? A vital one, according to those who know. We’ve talked a lot in these pages about the need to improve access to palliative care and a 2022 … Read more
After three decades working at Wollongong City Council’s memorial gardens and cemeteries, Operations Manager John Chilby has told the Illawarra Mercury he’s lost count of the times he’s seen families broken by misunderstandings when someone dies. “It causes more grief and break-ups between families, so we want to try and … Read more
Updated 15 March, 2022. Aged Care Reform Now (ACRN) asked if we would give their ‘13 questions – where do you stand on aged care’ campaign some publicity. It’s a year since the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety – but there hasn’t been enough improvement to aged … Read more
By Julia Grieves For anyone who’s been pregnant, especially for the first time, the looming reality of giving birth becomes an event etched into the calendar of one’s future. For most however, unless undergoing a booked in C-section, there is no clear grasp of exactly when this event will occur, … Read more
“Okay, what do you call ‘a good death?’,” Kerri-Anne Kennerley asked. Kerri-Anne was asking pertinent questions – prompted by her own painful experience and this has become one of my favourite interviews. Kerri-Anne’s beloved husband John Kennerley had only died four months before, in February 2019, following a long illness … Read more