Palliative Care Queensland is neutral in relation to VAD, however remains deeply concerned regarding the lack of funding for palliative care.
Palliative Care Queensland CEO, Shyla Mills, outlined the sector’s funding challenge, “We are neutral regarding VAD. However, VAD will not be easy to implement with an underfunded palliative care sector. VAD is about choice. However, data from other jurisdictions indicate that the option to access VAD would be taken up by less than 2% of the population, whilst Palliative Care needs to be available for 100% of people with a life-limiting condition, whether VAD is used or not. Current palliative care funding, is less than 1% of the Queensland health budget.
The additional funding of $171 Million that was regularly referred to during the VAD debate is actually over multiple years (6 years[1]) and is 10% of what our sector knows is needed to ensure all Queenslanders have access to palliative care from diagnosis through to bereavement. The funding that is referred to just will not be delivered quickly enough to meet the needs of Queenslanders who are experiencing serious illness, dying, death and grief.”
Palliative Care Queensland sent an open letter to all Members of Parliament (MPs) earlier this week, reminding them of their ongoing call for increased funding, and requesting immediate strategies to support the palliative care sector to adapt to these new laws during the implementation phase.
“We have said many times that palliative care can co-exist with VAD just as we co-exist with curative treatments, however, to co-exist with these new laws our sector will need to adapt, we will need to create new policies, processes, communication plans and sector training. While VAD won’t be delivered by palliative care teams, our teams will need to have the appropriate systems in place to respond to enquiries. That also requires resourcing. We are concerned that our already underfunded sector will have to take time away from our patient care to adapt to these new laws.” Said Ms. Mills.
“Now that these laws have passed, we look forward to the MPs who expressed their gratitude for palliative care during these VAD debates to showcase their support for our sector and appropriate resourcing. So, we can continue to deliver quality of care, provide quality of life and dignity to Queenslanders experiencing serious illness, dying, death and grief.”
Funding Breakdown of what has been requested immediately:
The funding outlined would provide for:
Palliative care response to VAD project – Focusing on supporting the palliative care sector to respond and adapt to this new legislation, particularly in relation to policy, strategy, communication, and staff self-care (including QHealth and NGOs services). This will ensure that palliative care is not removed from the front-line to provide input into the VAD implementation [Cost $750,000 over 3 years]
Queensland Bereavement Care Program – To support grief and bereavement issues that arise due to the public VAD discourse. This will also support the impact of COVID grief and loss and enable to palliative care sector to provide bereavement support to carers and families (which is currently a significant gap identified in the Palliative Care in Qld 2021: Bereavement Care report). This will provide online and face to face support, care, education and capacity building for the sector and community in relation to bereavement care [Cost $6M over 3 years]
Queensland Spiritual Care Program – To support spiritual issues related to serious illness, dying and grief that arise due to the public VAD discourse, this will also support the impact of COVID and existential questions and enable the palliative care sector to provide spiritual support to people in palliative care settings, carers and family (which is currently a significant gap identified in the Palliative Care in Qld 2021: Spiritual Care report ). This will provide online and Face to face support, care, education and capacity building for the sector and community in relation to spiritual care in palliative care [Cost $3M over 3 years]
Queensland Palliative Care Volunteer Village Program – A statewide palliative care ‘Volunteer Village’ to support palliative care services (specialist and generalist) and community groups, based on existing programs in NSW, VIC and ACT. Including Volunteer Coordinators in Specialist Palliative Care Services and programs similar to no- one dies alone [Cost $5M over 3 years]
To date, Palliative Care Queensland has not received a response from Government in relation to the requests for urgent funding.
[1] $171M was announced prior to the Qld election and is set to end is in 2025-2026
