And yet the state’s health system is struggling to keep up.

Despite the best efforts of our hospitals, hospices, palliative care units and nursing homes, the needs of people in the final stages of their lives, together with their loved ones and carers, are not being met.

Palliative care is designed to ensure that the patient is given the best quality of life, while the people around them are also afforded proper care and 

support. The reality, however, is quite different.

People in the final stages of their life should be cared for in their own 

environment, whether that be in a hospital environment or at home.

It is a sad indictment on our health system when that level of care is not locally available and people have to travel to Newcastle, or further, for end-of-life treatment and care.

The plight of terminally ill children is particularly desperate. These children and their families need separate facilities, not to be lumped in with aged palliative care patients.

Diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, motor neurone disease, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis and dementia can strike regardless of a person’s wealth, education, address, sex, nationality or religious beliefs.

We never know when we, or our loved ones, may need palliative care.

Congratulations to Gillieston Heights resident Adrian Bell for 

taking up the fight.

Mr Bell is joining a statewide push to improve services for the dying, by 

asking people to add their names to a petition, which calls on the O’Farrell government to direct more funding into palliative care services across NSW.

As Mr Bell quite rightly says, this issue has been allowed to slip below the political radar for too long.

Please get behind this cause and sign this petition today.