Australia and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine 2024 Conference

Two Te Ārai members were recently invited to give plenary lectures at the 2024 Australia and New Zealand Society Palliative Medicine conference held in Adelaide: Jackie Robinson and Merryn Gott. Jackie Robinson presented findings from her HRC funded project Te Whakahekenga (Deprivation and social justice in palliative care project), particularly in relation to our work with Te Tāpui Atawhai/The Auckland City Mission. She discussed how much we had learned through this relationship in terms of ways in which palliative care services should be working with street whānau. Jackie also showed some of the amazing art that street whānau had created as part of this project. We hope to gain funding to hold an exhibition of this work in the future, so watch this space!

Merryn built on Jackie’s presentation by speaking on our collaboration with Canadian colleagues Professor Kelli Stajduhar, Holly Prince, and Carren Dujela, and to share our experiences of working with communities traditionally underserved by palliative care. This has led to the development of a set of principles reflecting our own experiences which we hope will help others. The first iteration of these was published in our recent report for Te Whatu Ora. Importantly, this research highlights the potential for clinicians and researchers to accidentally cause harm, even when the intention is to help. In this context, we hope our key principles support the palliative care community to work with underserved communities in safe ways. You can find these in Section 3: Where To From Here? in our Underserved Communities of Palliative Care Report.