I just got back from the 2009 International Palliative Care Conference held in Perth Thursday 24th -Sunday 27th. The conference combined the 10th Australian Palliative care Conference and the 8th Asia pacific Hospice Conference and there is no doubt that this conference provided a rare opportunity for so many representatives countries to get together and look at Palliative Care from a very broad international perspective. 35 countries were represented with over 1250 delagates attending. I heard that there was over 325 speakers.
The topics discussed represented the broad range of concerns in Palliative Care from the development of national and international standards, policy and economic descision making, symptom control, complementary therapies, psycho social, spiritual concerns, non malignant palliative care, aged care, Carers, HIV/AIDS, paediatric care, models of care, clinical issues, public health, rural Health challenges, grief and bereavement, cultural connections, Indigenous connections, ethics and law, creativity in palliative care and symptom management.
Ggreater Western Area health were well represented in the speakers. Myself (James Daley), Christine Symmington (Palliative Care Nurse specialist Forbes) and Mellissa Cummings (CNC Broken Hill).
I talked about this blog in a talk titled "Expanding Worlds: Creating a Cyber Palliative Community in the Bush.", at the conference I talked alot about this blog and it's potential. The aim of this blog is to try and offset the social isolation experienced by those with a terminal illness and their carers by creating a space on the internet where participants can share their experiences in a supportive space. I also talked about the useful links that are also incorporated into the site. My talk was very well recieved and I found that it connected with other peoples work particularly in Victoria.
Mellissa talked about a case study entitled "Lils" Story which (Mel was given permission by the patient's family to talk about this culturaly sensitive topic ) examined the journey of a 34 year old Indigenous woman, diagnosed with metastatic cancer of the cervix when heavily pregnant with her 7th child. Melissa presented the case using photographic images of the Broken Hill landscape as a visual background to to the verbal presentation. The presentation highlighted the issues that arise for cancer and palliative care patients in rural and remote communities. One of the startling revelations of this talk was the fact that "people living in remote NSW diagnosed with cancer are about 35% more likely to die as a result of their cancer in the first five years, than people in areas with greater access to services" (Jong et al 2004)
Christines presentation was entitled "How do we improve access? Making the Palliative care service more accessible for Indigenous people. Working from the fact that Indigenous clients are under represented in the referral to Palliative Care service.
In consultation with local Aboriginal health workers strategies were developed to improve understanding and access for Indigenous clients. One of the strategies involved the development of a brochure titled "Palliative Care for Indigenous Australians" which was developed with the assistance of local Aboriginal artists.
I came away from the conference with many ideas I was particularly impressed by the need to develop palliative care's presence in the support of patients with non cancer life threatening illness's, a new value's based approach to education in Palliative Care, the role of community development in extending palliative care services ability to help people in remote and rural areas (which is a public health approach to palliative care), the increasing utilisation of complementary care in supporting palliative patients and their carer's and also the increasing use of the creative arts in helping support patients.
The whole conference experience was quite overwhelming at times, I was struck by the respect that every body showed to each others work and the enthusiasm that participants shared there findings with each other. Listening to speakers from developing countries talk about how they manage to deliver palliative services to huge populations on very little resources reminded me that our committment to each other and those we serve is our greatest resource.
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