Cut to most needy

IT HAS been said the true measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members.

On some current indicators that is a test we would fail terribly.

It is hard to imagine a more vulnerable and needy person than a home palliative care patient — someone prone to the worst of pain but requiring the kind assistance of visiting medical professionals.

It is a terrible development then that Bellarine Community Health has cut services to this most vulnerable and needy section of our society.

This newspaper obtained a letter sent last Thursday to palliative patients which explains to the “valued client” that, due to an inability to recruit and roster an on-call overnight nurse, the service was ending as of Monday just passed.

Instead patients needing help (presumably including relief from pain) in the lonely wee small hours — or at any point between 4.30pm and 8am — are given a Caritas Christi phone number that can provide “telephone support only.”

The instructions in the letter seem very permanent.

But, following inquiries from the Addy, the Bellarine chief executive has now indicated it is “temporary”. Well that’s a start. We talk a lot about dignity in the contexts of medicine and ageing.

Euthanasia advocates talk about a dignified death. Opponents of euthanasia talk about how palliative care can provide a dignified end of life.

But there is not much dignity in this development for the palliative ‘clients’ of this health network. All stops should be removed to fix this cruel cut.

If the health network cannot fill vital roles, perhaps this function should be moved to the Barwon Health network which has had fewer crises than Bellarine.

It could then provide a superior service linked to Barwon’s Andrew Love Cancer Centre.

This is one of those problems where the answer to how to fix it should be: Whatever it takes.