Te Omanga Hospice is a Charitable Trust that specialises in support and care for those living with a terminal illness, helping patients to make the most of their life that remains and ensuring that they die comfortably with dignity and in their own homes if they wish.
Te Omanga Hospice and local residential aged care facilities once again join to present the well respected fourth bienniel “Changing Minds” seminar.
The purpose of the 2013 seminar is to facilitate enhanced understanding of the ovelapping issues faced by people working within the specialty of gerontological and palliative care.
This seminar will address many of the issues raised by participants at the 2011 seminar including symptom management and pharmaceutical use, legal issues and managing challenging behaviors.
There is a need to start having the conversations earlier, inform people of choices, involve family caregivers and listen to the stories of the elderly to hear what they really want.
Keynote Speaker: Deborah Parker
Deborah Parker is the Director of The University of Queensland/Blue Care Research and Practice Development Centre and Director of the Australian Centre for Evidence Based Community Care. Deborah is a Registered Nurse who has worked clinically in a variety of settings - acute hospitals, geriatric assessment units and residential aged care specialising in palliative care and aged care.
In 1993, on completion of her Bachelor of Arts (Psychology/Sociology majors), she joined Professor Ian Maddocks, the first Chair of Palliative Medicine in the Southern Hemisphere to set up a palliative care research programme at Flinders University. In 2001 she was successful in obtaining an Australian Post Graduate Award (APA) to commence her PhD. She was awarded the Peter Meflin Scholarship prize for the highest ranked application for an APA in the School of Medicine at Flinders University. Her PhD thesis was the first Australian ethnographic study of people dying in residential aged care.
For the last eighteen years she has been trying to improve the experience of dying for older people in residential aged care.
|
|
|
|
|
* In our Garden of Appreciation in Petone
|
|
 Advisory Group Roles Applications now open
|
Te Omanga receives 35% of its annual funding needs from the local community with the balance being provided through a contract with the Hutt Valley District Health Board.
It is no exaggeration to say that Te Omanga Hospice could not survive without the kindness and understanding of individuals and organisations in the community we serve.
It costs over $6 million every year to maintain our existing levels of service.
We have to raise over $2.3 million of this from our community - a tremendous challenge.
Please click on the Online Donations Link and fill in the form to make a secure online credit card donation to keep our service free to our patients and families.
|
