A woman who watched her cancer-ridden mother die a horrific and undignified death is calling for a hospice to be built in Maitland as a matter of urgency.
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Earlier this year Kelly Mayall was forced to say goodbye to her mother in a crowded medical ward.
Her death followed months of heartbreaking hours where Lynette Hartley, 62, laid dying on a lounge without palliative care and only her children to care for her.
In the end Ms Hartley was admitted to Maitland Hospital where she spent the last days of her life in a room surrounded by four other patients.
“If we had a hospice none of this horror would have happened,” Ms Mayall, 39, of East Maitland, said.
“Not having a hospice really robbed us because you can’t grieve properly in a room full of people.
“I can only imagine the horror when the other people heard me say to mum ‘you don’t have to be here anymore, don’t stay and do this, you are free to go’.
“My mother wanted me to take on her plight and change things. She felt cast out and left to die.Those were her words.”
Ms Mayall has now joined a statewide campaign urging the government to
contribute more funds to palliative care services across NSW.
Initiated by retired Sydney palliative care specialist Dr Yvonne McMaster, the push calls for the state government to increase its funding to palliative care.
Ms Hartley was diagnosed with breast
cancer in 2008. Three years later she was given the all clear.
Soon after the cancer spread to her shoulder blade, hip, lungs, stomach, 52 lymph nodes and eventually her brain.
“I begged for palliative care but I couldn’t get it. I had no help,” Ms Mayall said.
“When mum got sick I just thought the services would be there so when it wasn’t there for us it was perplexing. There was just nothing to help us, nothing at all.”
Ms Hartley was hospitalised on May 22 and died on June 12.
“The irony is that the hospital called palliative care to ask for assistance. Mum died at 2pm and palliative care arrived at 2.30pm,” Ms Mayall said.
“We were robbed of so many things including not being able to grieve properly or to have those special conversations during the last three weeks of her life.
“Having mum in a hospice would have been far less distressing.
“And the impact and the fall-out is not good. The hospital staff did the best they could, I’m sure, but it was nowhere near good enough.
“Maitland Hospital is not a cancer hospital and a medical ward is not where you go for palliation.”
Ms Mayall has now joined forces with Dr McMaster and Gillieston Heights man Adrian Bell in circulating a petition calling for additional palliative care services.
“We can’t continue to grow this community without taking into consideration the end of that community’s life,” she said.
“It’s one thing to provide for us when we are all alive and well but everyone comes to the end. What’s in place for when that happens?
“Mum died a horrific death. Towards the end she became very confused, she was thrashing around and tearing at her face. If she was in a hospice it wouldn’t have mattered.
“I did my best for mum and would do it again in a heartbeat. But there has to be a better system in place.”