For Adam Whitby, a Clinical Nurse Specialist at Territory Palliative Care’s Darwin Hospice, making the choice to move to palliative care in the mid-90s was the best career move he made.
“People often ask me how I can continue to do it after all these years. They often ask if I find it depressing. No, is the short answer to that, it’s not depressing. It’s actually quite uplifting when you can make someone feel more comfortable because you’ve been able to take away their physical pain and other symptoms, and help to relieve their emotional pain,” Mr Whitby said.
“Making people feel safe, comfortable and better about their situation makes me feel good, and I derive great professional satisfaction from that. I see death as a natural part of a life lived, it awaits every single one of us.”
It is National Palliative Care Week (23 – 29 May) and a chance to highlight the work of palliative care specialists and palliative care nurses like Mr Whitby along with the support provided by general practitioners, volunteers, allied health professionals, community workers and everyone who works within the palliative care sphere.
Palliative care workers like Mr Whitby have a deep understanding of the difficult situations people near the end of their life or with a life-limiting illness are facing. They are there to help. Palliative care workers can support the loved ones of people near the end of their life and help them live with their grief and bereavement.
Mr Whitby has worked at the Darwin hospice at the Royal Darwin Hospital campus for six years after moving up from Sydney. Prior to specialising in palliative care he specialised in HIV & infectious diseases at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.
He had the opportunity to move to the then new HIV palliative care unit in Victoria in 1996. “It took me about two minutes to decide what I wanted to do. Making the choice to move to palliative care was the best career move I’ve ever made.”
The theme for this year’s National Palliative Care Week is: ‘Palliative Care it’s more than you think’, which seeks to raise awareness about the many benefits of quality palliative care.
Mr Whitby said that palliative care is available to people with a serious and life-limiting illness and their families, to assist in managing their symptoms, improve their quality of life and help them to live as well as possible, for as long as possible. Palliative care identifies and treats symptoms which may be physical, emotional, spiritual or social.
Find more information about palliative care in the NT here.
