Palliative Care Gala night and Professional Development Forum

Hi

I've just had an amazing couple of day's. I attended the NSW Palliative Care Gala night on 28th. It was held in the Holme building at Sydney University. It was a bit weird for me because it brought back powerful memories of me as a 20year old wandering around (1978-1980) the university with not much of clue trying to complete a fine art's degree. It just didn't happen I completed 2 years and dropped out. But so many good memories of friends and doing really silly things, fun things. Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all!!

The Holme building has that old style university feel, it reminds you of the "Hogwarts" panaled walls covered by old dark oil paintings ( Isaw a John Passmore which I liked) Panaled walls. On the back wall was a huge mural. It reminded me of Michelangelo's last Judgement, (without the judgement, angels, demon's and God) all about human progess through academic achievement despite all the hardship etc. It was a very grand setting.

James Valentine was the compare and he was very entertaining! He payed for a little while in his jazz ensemble. Linda Hanson (one of the organiser's) sang a beutiful "Georgia" The minister of Health was there John Della Bosca. He said that he had a 1954 Les Paul and that he should of brought it all long! I can't remember alll the categories for the awards but Dr Richard Chi the director of Sacred Heart Hospice in Darlinghurst got the award for innovation in Palliative Care.If you are really interested I think if you go to the Palliative Care NSW site (It's one of our links) they will probably post more details. It was lovely to see that Claudia Guigni and Sue Netherwood from our area nominated.

The education day was one of the best I'd attended it started off with a talk by Dr Frank Brennan on the role of Palliative Care in Renal medicine. We had talks from other prominant physicians, Pain Specialists, Intensive Care, interesting research on the impact of Loss and Grief on Palliative Care Staff, Paediatric Palliative Care, Pain Management in Patients with drug dependency and Advances in the treatment of Brain Metastases. It really highlighted for me the range and diversity of issues areas of medicine that palliative Care intersects with. The issues surrounding death and dying really are everyone's concern. The day was a huge success thanks to Joan Ryan and her team for all the hard work organising the day.

I spoke to Janeen Folfani about the Blog and what we were hoping to do to develop and expand it's potential. Janeen who through PEPA funding helps to promote Paliative Care through education, placements for health professionals and other events which promote the understanding of Palliative Care. She has agreed to help fund our writing workshops. That is so exciting!!

I better wrap, it's Saturday morning and my wife is trying to get everyone organised, house tidy so we can get on with the day. I'd love to hear from anyone interested in the blog, Christine has made it so easy to post a blog just click on the link! And if you get a chance have a go at completing the evaluations it will only take a few minutes and it will give us an indication as to how the blog is working for people. I've got to go.

Look forward from hearing from you!

James

wavingnotdrowning1.power@blogger.com

wavingnotdrowning1.power@blogger.com

This is the email address for posting to the blog (Note: a change from the one on the flyer). If you click on the link it should work automatically.

Blood Cancer Chat Group

The Blood Cancer Chat Group is located in Forbes and is run by Claire Whatmore ph 68563146. It meets every 4 months for afternoon tea from 2-4pm. The next meeting is scheduled for 4th July.
Claire describes the group as an informal gathering of people who have experienced a blood Cancer (Care's and Patients) and would like a place were they can share their experiences with a group of supportive and caring people.

Workshops

Hi ALL,
I would really like to get some workshops running with the local palliative care community and the users of this blog page. The workshops could help people tell their stories, teach the photographing and videoing of stories, show how to use the blog and help people to enjoy the time they spend together.
Do you have any ideas for workshops?

Christine
Art and Health Coordinator
Bathurst Health Service

James

Hi

It's a cold and foggy day to day. Christine and I are very excited about the potential of Waving Not Drowning in the last 24 hours 32 people have visited the site and we can't wait to actually start to see the posts arrive!

Communication can be empowering especialy when your communicating to people who understand what you are going through and who have the information and understanding that you might need to help you through a difficult time!

At the moment Christine and I are collating all the contacts of the support groups in our area ie the Southern and Eastern clusters of the Greater Western Area Health Service (which is quite an undertaking given the fact the area encompasses places such as Totenham, Tullamore, Lake Cargelligo in the southern area to areas such as Oberon, Blayney in the eastern end.) We hope that getting this information all in one place online will make it easier for people to access the groups in their area .

If you can think of any groups in your area that you think people may be interested in let us know about them, you never know it might be just the group that someone needs to know about.

Today I am off to Sydney, the NSW Palliative Care group is having a Gala dinner, then on Friday I'm attending a Palliative Care education day. It's a very busy time.

Over the last 3 days the Bathurst Palliative Care team (Nurses and Volunteer's have been manning a Palliative Care Awareness table at Stockland Mall in Bathurst. It was a very interesting and rewarding experience for all involved. People stopped and were able to talk about situations that were troubling them. One person's relative was dying in another Australian state and she was very unsure about what she could expect from her family, we were able to talk to her about our experiences of similar situations and provide her with reading material and other contacts. After talking to us for about 30 mins she felt alot more able to deal with her difficult situation. The table was so successful that we intend to run it once a month for 3 hours. Once we have organised I will post the details on the blog.

Hope to hear from people soon


Have a wonderful Day


James

CanAssist: Cancer Assistance Network

Financially supporting people in our community suffering from cancer.
How can we help?
Funds are available from CanAssist (Bathurst) to provide assistance for:

• equipment hire/purchase
• dietary aids
• travel and accommodation expenses while receiving treatment
• purchasing pharmaceuticals

If you wish to discuss how you or one of your relatives might seek such financial support, you should approach a health care professional or social worker at

Bathurst Health Service 6339 5311

Daffodil Cottage 6330 5347

Centrelink 6334 8412

Patients assisted by CanAssist remain anonymous and all requests for help are treated confidentially.

Need more information: June Turner 6337 1146