Palliative Care

Palliative care is specialist medical care focused on comfort rather than cure. It manages pain, breathlessness, nausea, anxiety, and other symptoms. It can run alongside curative treatment — you don't have to choose one or the other.

It is not just for the last weeks. Many people receive palliative care for months or years alongside their regular treatment.

• Ask your GP or specialist for a referral
• Palliative care can be delivered at home, in hospital, in a hospice, or in aged care
• Community palliative care teams visit your home — often a nurse, doctor, social worker, and sometimes a chaplain
• Most palliative care in Australia is free or heavily subsidised through Medicare and state health systems

Modern palliative care is very good at managing pain. If the pain is not well controlled, say so — there is almost always something more that can be done. The team can also help with breathlessness, nausea, anxiety, insomnia, and loss of appetite.

Palliative care is for the whole family, not just the patient. The team can help with conversations about the future, advance care planning, carer burnout, and grief — both before and after the death. Ask for what you need.

Most Australians say they want to die at home. Palliative care teams can make this possible — with regular visits, after-hours phone support, equipment (hospital beds, oxygen, syringe drivers), and respite for carers. It is not always easy, but it is possible.

Accepting palliative care does not mean a person is giving up or hastening death. It means choosing to be comfortable. Research consistently shows that people who receive good palliative care often live longer, not shorter, than those who don't.