clinical focus
A meaningful end
New tools help staff and
residents face death.
Ilsa Hampton interviewed by Conor Burke
“
D
ying is an art, like everything
else.” So said Sylvia Plath in her
poem, Lady Lazarus.
And like any art, it is often hard to fathom
what works best. With dying, we only get
one chance to get it right.
Meaningful Ageing Australia released
two new resources for aged care homes to
better deal with the end-of-life process.
32 agedcareinsite.com.au
Aiming at moving past the clinical needs
of the patient and looking at emotional and
spiritual needs, The Spirituality of Dying
Workshop: Facilitator’s Guide provides
straightforward material to help
organisations increase the skill of all staff.
The peak body has also developed the
implementation tool, Older People are
Supported to Prepare for End of Life, which
supports organisations with the National
Guidelines for Spiritual Care in Aged Care.
This can help with advance care
planning, how to approach conversations
about death, and a raft of other ideas that
can better equip staff in difficult situations.
Aged Care Insite heard more about
these resources from Ilsa Hampton, chief
executive of Meaningful Ageing Australia.
ACI: What do you think we’re missing
when it comes to end-of-life planning
that you felt the need to create these
resources?
IH: Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot to
say about that. But in brief, one of the key
things is that there’s a lot of staff that are in
touch with people as they’re preparing for
the end of their life, and then also in their
actual final days and when they die.
Across all of those different staff, a
large number of them haven’t had the
opportunity to really explore what that
means, maybe even to understand some
of the clinical aspects of it, but in particular
we are interested in the emotional and
spiritual – so the existential side of those
preparations of what it means to be with
people during this absolutely critical time
of their lives.
One of your new tools is the Spirituality
of Dying Workshop: Facilitator’s Guide.
What does this entail?
This guide has been written so that aged
care organisations and also some broader
organisations like healthcare or community
services can give their staff in a whole
range of roles – so people who don’t
necessarily have any clinical training – the
opportunity to reflect and start to upskill