Hospice’s ‘groundbreaking’ support program helps families navigate voluntary assisted dying
LONDON: A hospice is earning widespread acclaim for a program supporting patients and their families to navigate the voluntary assisted dying (VAD) process.
Rosehaven, a five-bedroom facility in Mansfield, in Victoria’s north east, offers non-clinical respite and end-of-life support.
Manager Bianca Hurle said stories about people’s lonely last moments inspired her to help develop the VAD support program.
“We’ve heard of people who have accessed their medications in motels, caravans, cars, or they choose to go to hospital,” Ms Hurle said.
“I personally can’t think of anything worse than spending the last night of my life in a hospital.”
Ms Hurle said the program was designed to support people who wished to access VAD but might not be ready to talk about their decision with people they knew.
“Sometimes people don’t want to have the conversation with their families during the process because they’re not sure whether they’ll be accepted or not. It’s quite a stringent process,” Ms Hurle said.
Rosehaven has 17 volunteers trained to help support those going through the VAD process in various ways, from witnessing the signing of paperwork and driving people to appointments.
“I’m a supporter of people’s right to death, right to choose their time to die,” volunteer Rose Gilder said.
“It’s been a very humbling experience … to see how much thought that they’ve taken … to save their family the pressure of seeing a long, slow, painful demise … taking control and doing it when they want it to themselves.”
Volunteer Elaine Irwin said witnessing signing of documents required a very precise eye.
“It is a very bureaucratic process to the point where if there is a simple letter that should have been a capital letter but it is not, that can invalidate a document,” she said.
“As well as being bureaucratic it’s actually very emotional but in an amazing way, I thought it was very dignified and very moving.”
But those volunteering in the Rosehaven VAD support team can opt out at any time.
“Not all of our volunteers are comfortable to be with the person when they take their medication, not all of our volunteers are willing to provide transport,” Ms Hurle said.
Ms Gilder said often the debrief happened on a long car trip home.
“You have to have the strength of being able to separate yourself a little bit and know what your role here is,” she said.
“It’s mostly positive emotions.”
Ms Hurle said extra effort was made to help affected families celebrate the lives of their loved ones.
“We can put on a last supper, and have families and friends come and celebrate the life of that person with the person the night before they access the medication,” Ms Hurle said.
“We have 4.5 acres [1.8 hectares] of established gardens, so we’ve just received some funding for a chair that we can actually take out in the gardens … they can actually access the medication out there,” she said.
Dying With Dignity Victoria president Jane Morris described Rosehaven’s approach as “groundbreaking”.
“If you had said to me, ‘Describe the perfect model of hospice care in which VAD would be incorporated’, [Rosehaven] would have been it,” Ms Morris said.
“They set a shining example to so many hospices.”
Ms Morris said she had not heard of any similar programs happening at other hospices around Australia.
“We still have a lot of problems with hospices and aged care facilities who will not accommodate VAD,” Ms Morris said.
Ms Morris said she had heard of facilities telling patients at the last minute they were no longer able to accommodate VAD, and cases of pharmacists being banned from entering premises when they tried to deliver medication.
“We would love to eventually see all health-based facilities doing a policy statement, letting people know whether they will allow VAD to occur on their premises,” Ms Morris said.
“We feel it will be a very important part of the decision-making process for many people when they are looking around at places where they’ll live for the rest of their life.”
