JETAWAY WITH JETSTAR
In the days before her death, Kathleen Bird could not speak. The Taranaki woman’s ability to communicate had been robbed from her by a stroke. In spite of this setback, her family knew exactly what they needed to do to ensure the final days of her 96-year-old life went the way she wanted.
In the months before she died in June 2016, Kathleen, with the help of her family and medical team, sat down and planned the care she wanted to receive at the end of her life.
Known as an advance care plan, it detailed what Kathleen’s wishes were and what type of medical intervention she would want when faced with death.
Prior to this, her son Tony Bird says there was nothing in writing and without the plan, the family would have been in the dark about what to do.
‘‘You knew what she wanted, not what we thought she wanted,’’ he says of the plan.
‘‘Basically, we followed that in her final days.’’
Advance care planning or ACP gives an opportunity for people to plan their end of life care, including whether they want lifesaving treatment or not.
ACP was first rolled out across the Auckland and Christchurch district health boards in 2010 before it was introduced to other regions, including Taranaki in 2014.
One of Kathleen’s wishes was that she did not want to die in hospital, so when the time was right, arrangements were made for her to return to the rest home she had been living in.
‘‘She wanted to die in her own home and spent the last days of her life where she was happy,’’ Tony says.
‘‘It was a peaceful end and that’s what she wanted.’’
He says the care plan provided him with a sense of comfort during his mother’s death and reassured him he was fulfilling his mother’s last wishes to the letter. Getting over the taboo which still surrounds death was one thing he struggled with, and believes others might too.
‘‘It is a difficult thing to talk about. I kind of thought it’s a little bit morbid. You’ve got to put that aside and think about what’s best for all parties,’’ he says.
The experience has got him thinking about his own life and the type of care he wanted to receive.
‘‘We all think we’re immortal, but we’re not,’’ he says.
Kickstarting conversations about death is the goal of Taranaki District Health Board (TDHB) ACP facilitator Claudia Matthews.
‘‘Thinking and talking about the future and end of life care isn’t easy but it’s important,’’ she says.
An advance care plan provides a unique opportunity for people to ensure their personal values, wishes and beliefs are stuck to in the final days of their lives, regardless of their medical condition at the time.
Matthews began as the regional facilitator in November 2016, in an effort to give the project momentum in Taranaki and boost the numbers of people completing ACP.
In Taranaki, the ACP completion rate is ‘‘reasonably low’’ Matthews says, something she is tasked with changing during her three year tenure. Since 2014, 259 plans have been finished across the region.
‘‘Promotion is probably 50 per cent of my role,’’ she says.
While the focus includes talking with the over 65s or patients with terminal or chronic illness, Matthews says advance care planning is available for everyone who wants it.
She sees part of her role as providing confidence to people to talk with their doctor about their end of life care.
Matthews says patients are often scared or too nervous to broach the subject while health professionals want to avoid any unnecessary stress or heartache for people.
‘‘They’re not nice things to talk about, death and dying,’’ she admits.
She says the ‘‘societal norm’’ is to