Starting July 1, the federal government is rolling out the End of Life Pathway, a new funding plan that gives older people with a life expectancy of less than three months more in-home resources.
Helping them die at home is a smart and strategic initiative. With the huge baby boomer population approaching their 80s, the health and aged care systems are bulging at the seams. It makes sense to keep people out of hospitals.
Participants of the End of Life Pathway are eligible for $25,000 to be spent on a long list of approved services such as nursing care, respite care, domestic assistance, physio, occupational therapy, social support, home modifications, music therapy, etc. The $25K is in addition to the services they may already be receiving as part of their home care package and palliative services already offered by their state or territory.
It sounds great in theory, but the practicalities may not be so rosy.
There have been long delays in the aged care system for years as older people wait for the availability of home care packages and the services they provide. The federal government says the long-awaited aged care reforms will address those long waiting lists, but without a large increase in the capacity of aged care service providers, I don’t know how that’s going to achieved.
Meantime, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Aged Care told me that “there will be no waitlist for access to funding under the End of Life Pathway for eligible participants”.
As for being assessed as eligible…
“Timeframes will be influenced by a range of factors, including the supply of necessary medical information,” said the spokesperson.
Staffing the Pathway
Obviously, the additional funding will be useless if there’s no additional staff to provide the services. End of life doulas do not appear on the approved services list. They argue that it’s a missed opportunity to lighten the load.
End of Life doula and trainer Helen Callanan said, “If the goal of this funding is to support more people to die well at home, it makes no sense to exclude the very practitioners trained to accompany people through this time and the many stages it encompasses”.
Meantime Denise Love has delivered community care for decades, having worked as a palliative care nurse and a death doula. She’s regularly faced with a lack of available palliative care and allied health services for her clients.
“Many of my clients die within three weeks and palliative care hasn’t even visited. People don’t always have pal care options where they live, but they do have death doulas,” she said.
“It can take weeks to find an allied health provider, and that means I’ve also had clients who were unable to go home to die.
“My dream is that we will integrate into the system just as social workers, occupational therapists, and physios have done, with our own provider codes under a simple but sustainable Code of Practice for Doulas,” said Ms Love.
The End of Life Pathway is part of the new Support at Home program, which will replace the current Home Care Package program. This shakeup of the aged care system is a result of the damning Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety which revealed a system in crisis. The reform aims to make the sector more regulated and transparent, improving the care of older Australians.
Let’s hope it does.
Thanks to Lisa Herbert for contributing this article.
You’ll find more about the Pathway at thebottomdrawerbook.com.au/blog