News

Palliative Care quilts bring comfort to Koori patients

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 03:32:00

A collaboration between health professionals, community groups and Aboriginal elders is providing a more comfortable experience for Koori patients at Mildura Base Hospital’s Palliative Care Unit.

Palliative care helps people live their life as fully and as comfortably as possible when living with a life-limiting or terminal illness.
Koori-themed comforters are an initiative resulting from implementation of the “Sunraysia Region Aboriginal Palliative Care Pathway”.
MBH Palliative Care Nurse Unit Manager Tracey Tonkin said the Aboriginal Care Pathways were developed from consultations across the Loddon Mallee.
“They’re really the guiding principles that underpin service delivery for Aboriginal people,” Ms Tonkin said.
“The aim is to provide healthcare that is more culturally appropriate.  As a rehabilitation and palliative care team we brainstormed for ideas that would further enrich the inpatient stay for palliative patients and we came up with the idea of the comforters.”
The Palliative Care Unit at MBH last year also implemented palliative care boxes, which contain CDs, essential oils, toiletry items, reading material and refreshments for comfort and support to palliative inpatients and their carers.
Ms Tonkin said evaluation of the project identified the opportunity to provide items that were more culturally-appropriate for Koori patients and the idea of Aboriginal-themed comforter quilts and pillow slips was born.
MBH Aboriginal Liaison Health Unit Manager Steve Portelli said the initiative by the Palliative Care Unit Staff was welcomed by local Elders.
“The comforters are practical and they’re meaningful and bringing it together was a real community effort,” Mr Portelli said.
“The fabrics were selected by the Elders and sourced from various Aboriginal artists across Australia, with funds from Sunraysia Cancer Resources’ ‘Friends of Palliative Care’ trust account,” he said.
“It was also fantastic that a community member, Kate Murdoch, volunteered to make the quilts and the matching pillow slips – so we now have six sets of quilts for patients and their families during this really difficult time.”