How can Australia improve palliative care?
As Australia’s population ages, discussion over how we care for people at the end of their life is gaining traction.
Palliative care supports patients and their families at the end of life, although it should be noted that’s it not just the elderly who need palliative care, but people with life threatening illness as well.
Governments and other organisations around Australia have numerous projects to improve quality of life for dying patients, and rein in costs.
Over the next couple of weeks here on Think Health we will be looking at some of these initiatives. But first we need to take a look at what exactly palliative care is. Josh Nicholas spoke with Dr Jane Philips, Professor of Palliative Nursing and Director of the Centre for Cardiovascular and Chronic Care at the University of Technology Sydney.
Image: Lee Haywood on Flickr.
