Hospice Awareness Talk
We would love to come and speak for you
Many people here on the Coast are not aware that there is a major endeavour to build a much needed Hospice here on the Sunshine Coast, a facility our region desperately needs. In fact, many people are not even aware as to what a hospice actually does, and is often confused with other pal-liative care facilities. We are endeavouring to educate and inform as many people on the Coast about this project, and if we can talk at your next meeting or function we would love to!
The Sunshine Coast Community Hospice will be established to provide competent and specialist medical/nursing care to terminally patients and their families. The holistic care will be provided in a purpose built establishment over 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. We intend to provide care for both adults and children in a beautiful environment and support patients and their families to make the most of the time they have left together.
The charity intends to work in a professional partnership with all other service providers on the Sunshine Coast. It is a proposal of the charity to launch a teaching centre, therefore providing education/counselling to GP’s, fellow professional and careers in the community.
We ask that you invite us to provide a guest speaker to speak at your club/organisation meetings to raise awareness of our endeavours to provide such a much needed facility.
Please contact us if you would like to have us speak at your next meeting, or alternatively download our ‘Hospice Awareness Talk’ form.
This charity has been established with the intention of building the first free standing hospice on the Sunshine Coast, stage 1 incorporating 8 rooms with ensuite, 6 for adults and 2 in a child friendly wing.
The hospice will be built by the community for the community and our intention is to work in professional partnership with all palliative care health providers ensuring all care and services to patients and families will be free of personal charge.
The hospice will provide holistic care allowing patients to maintain dignity and to be cared for in the final phase of their life irrespective of their beliefs, lifestyle or culture. The hospice business plan provides for further growth of the hospice services over a ten year period to extend much needed care over the entire Sunshine Coast and Cooloola District.
About the Sunshine Coast Community HospiceDid you know that at any one point in time, it is estimated that there are 100 terminally ill patients on the Sunshine Coast? Did you know that there is currently no hospice on the Sunshine Coast to service these very deserving and needy people?
Two local palliative nurses long-held dream of establishing a community based hospice service for the Sunshine Coast and Cooloola regions took a huge step towards becoming a reality on Friday 23rd May 2008 when the project was officially launched at the Lake Kawana Community Centre.
Having worked in the industry in both Australia and the UK, Terry Clarke-Burrows of Cooroy and Sue Story of Twin Waters resigned from their full time local nursing positions over a year ago to drive the project.
“Excluding Brisbane, there are currently two well established and successful community hospices in SE Qld, in Ipswich and Toowoomba, each with capacity for 6 clients at any one time. Those cities each have an additional 10 dedicated palliative care beds in their public hospitals. In the latter facilities care is delivered by a palliative care team but still in an acute hospital environment with limited provision for onsite family accommodation,” says Clarke-Burrows.
“By comparison the Sunshine Coast, with a much larger population, has no hospice and has only 2 palliative care beds in a special unit attached to the Caloundra Public Hospital. An expansion of this hospital will provide a dedicated 10 bed palliative care wing by the end of 2008 but this will only represent a marginal improvement in the quantum of facilities for the estimated 100 terminally ill patients on the Coast at any point of time,” says Story.
In the process of getting out into the community, conducting research and establishing a team to help turn their dream into a reality, the pair discovered a huge lack of education when it came to palliative care, so their first mission has been educating the community on the acute need for a community hospice and defining the role such a hospice can play to those who are dying or suffering long term illnesses. “What we discovered was that a lot of people just presumed that with a growing and ageing population like the one we have that there must already be a hospice here. Many have been quite shocked when we informed them that in fact there isn’t one and that was exactly why we were setting out to create one,” says Story.
Clarke-Burrows says right now there are numerous incidences where young locals who are suffering a terminal illness are forced to be housed in aged care facilities, such is the current lack of suitable facilities.
“And parents with terminally ill children are often forced to commute to Brisbane whilst they receive treatment, and either commute home each night or sleep on the floor of the ward just to be with them, there are simply no other options for them,” she says.
The Sunshine Coast Community Hospice will be established to provide competent and specialist medical/nursing care to terminally patients and their families. The holistic care will be provided in a purpose built establishment over 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. We intend to provide care for both adults and children in a beautiful environment and support patients and their families to make the most of the time they have left together.