Palliative Care Education
How does Hospice Taranaki share knowledge and expertise with the community?
Vanessa Philp our Clinical Nurse Educator – with over 10yrs experience in palliative care nursing and has had the role of Hospice Taranaki Nurse Educator for the last 4yrs
- Palliative care is based on the philosophy that each person is a unique individual with unique needs.
- It is important to know that people are referred to Hospice for Palliative care when they have come to a stage where the disease they have - is not responding to treatment any more.
- Hospice wants to provide palliative care for people with a life limiting illness, to bring comfort and to relieve their suffering.
- Holistic Care is a model of care that understands that the whole person is made up of the physical, psychological, cultural, spiritual, intellectual and social dimensions as well as supporting their families/ whanau and significant others who are walking the journey with them.
With the support of Hospice New Zealand we, Hospice Taranaki – via, myself and Letiesha Sue - run education sessions from our in-patient unit (Te Rangimarie) and out in the community every week.
The Education programme we have - is an integral part of the organisation. One of our challenges, we believe, is providing consistent, essential education and deeper understanding of the person who has a life limiting illness or condition.
The Education focus is on using every opportunity to continue training and updating the skills our hospice and community based colleague’s needs to provide quality Palliative Care. We particularly support our Community organisations such as the Taranaki Aged Care facilities and the Home based support agencies.
To “champion” each of the Rest Homes we have established a core team of LINK nurses in each facility. This link nurse will receive an hour education session- every other month; they then share this information and knowledge with their staff in their facility. Also additional Education sessions are delivered at the facilities by Letiesha and myself as requested.
Next issue with Vanessa, she will dispel some myths attached to syringe drivers and really how valuable a Syringe Driver is…