Palliative care

Our palliative care services provide compassionate support for patients and families during serious illness

What we do

Our Palliative Care offers a comprehensive inpatient, outpatient and community palliative service that provides high quality care and support to individuals and their carers living with life-limiting illnesses.

The priority is providing holistic care to manage the physical, spiritual, emotional and social symptoms that align with an individual's preferences and wishes to ensure quality of life.

The Palliative Care service:

Aims to enhance quality of life and may also positively influence the course of illness
Is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing symptoms
Integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care
Affirms life and regards dying as a normal process
Offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death
Addresses symptom management such as pain and other symptoms
Provides help with end-of-life decision making (eg withdrawal of treatment)
Assists with advance care planning
Intends neither to hasten nor postpone death
Offers bereavement support

Meet the Palliative Care team

With specialist palliative knowledge and experience, they are committed to providing high quality care and support to individuals and their carers living with a range of life-limiting illnesses.

Dr Hana Thompson is a Specialist Palliative Physician who consults in all areas of Palliative Medicine, providing palliative services in the outpatient clinic, hospital inpatient wards and to community consumers.

After completing Medicine at the University of Melbourne and then undertaking further hospital-based training in Melbourne, Dr Thompson then completed General Practice training and further specialist training in palliative medicine across various sites in metropolitan Melbourne.

Our Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Consultants provide palliative support across Bass Coast.

The priority is providing holistic care that aligns to an individual’s goals and wishes to ensure quality of life. The Clinical Nurse Consultants work with a multi-disciplinary approach alongside medical teams, allied health and nursing staff, ensuring a collaborative approach to patient-centred care.

They help with the coordination of care for individuals between the inpatient palliative setting, community palliative setting and specialist reviews as required with the Specialist Palliative Physician Dr Hana Thompson or Palliative Care Consultancy Gippsland.

What we offer

Bayside Health Regional Palliative Care Service is about supporting you to live as comfortably and independently as possible at home, focusing on what matters most to you.

The Palliative Care Nurses can:

Provide access to limited out of hours nursing service 7 days a week
Support and provide education to consumers and carers
Liaise closely with carers
Liaise closely with other healthcare providers such as doctors, specialists and allied health
Provide access to consult with a specialist palliative care physician/nurse practitioner if/when needed
Arrange equipment to provide safe and more effective care of the consumer in their own home. Costs will be discussed as applicable
Organise hospital/hospice respite if needed
Follow-up bereavement visits and referral for grief counselling as required

How to access this service

A doctor’s or health professional’s referral is required. Additional information is required relevant to the referral e.g. recent scans and test results, and/or specialist letters.

Please complete the attached referral form, referrals can be made via the telephone and email as follows.

Phone: (03) 5671 9219
Email: district.nursing@basscoasthealth.com.au

MR-316 Palliative Care Referral Triage and Transfer Form

507KB pdf