End-of-Life Care Priorities

Otago Magazine, June 2005

We can’t change the fact of death, but we can change how we care for people at the end of their lives, says Professor Rod MacLeod.

MacLeod, the South Link Health Professor in Palliative Care, has just returned from presenting papers at two conferences held in Korea.

In his role as clinical adviser to Hospice New Zealand, he reported to the second Global Summit for Palliative Care Organisations on care in this country, and supported the conference declaration urging all governments to take seriously the need for effective end-of-life care.

“Experts discussed such things as advocacy, research principles, educational needs and funding,” says MacLeod. “We found similar situations all over the world, with a mix of delegates from such diverse places as Mongolia, Nigeria and downtown Boston.”

The global conference will be held every two years from now on.

The following Asia-Pacific Hospice Conference, attended by some 1,200 delegates from 37 countries, covered areas such as family support, training, symptom management and educational facilities.

MacLeod, the only professor of palliative care in New Zealand, has been trying to build up research activities at the University of Otago, involving postgraduate students in looking at the use of health care by people who are dying, and surveying general practitioners on various aspects of end-of-life care.

He believes that there is still much to be done. “New Zealand palliative care is seriously underfunded, and there is nothing like enough time for it in the undergraduate curriculum.”