Karuna: caring and compassion

Annie — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 04:49:44 +0000

A beautiful garden is the perfect place to have five minutes before a meeting. Time to stand by the fish pond. Time to reflect. I was visiting for the first time. I’d been too busy on other trips to Brisbane.

Anyway with regular updates in the mail, I’ve always felt in touch with Karuna’s mission. Reading the stories, appreciating the difference made to families, has unfailingly given me heart.

The Australian Centre for Health Research highlights that ‘too many Australians experience pain and suffering in the final months and days of their lives, and die in a way they would not choose. These outcomes ripple out beyond the dying person to their families, loved ones, caregivers, and communities.’ (ACHR Conversations: Creating Choices in End of Life Care). Karuna provides a community palliative care model that changes this. It is a model to aspire to.

Karuna’s been a charity of choice for a long time. I welcomed the news when it was founded in the early 1990s. I felt terrible chagrin over my inexperience and inadequacy when my mother was terminally ill. I wanted to change the circumstances in which ordinary people approach death.

Venerable Hawter’s founding vision centred on caring and compassion. Karuna would enable people with incurable illness to live in comfort and peace in the familiar and reassuring surrounds of their own home. He set about creating Karuna with nurses, counsellors and other palliative care professionals. The credibility of the service was recognised a few years later with funding from the Queensland Health Department. Hundreds of volunteers have come forward to assist over the years. A new building was found and revamped.

CEO Elisabeth Roberts was kind enough to take the time to make me welcome at the Karuna House. She is passionate about her organisation and making a difference to as many people as possible. I asked her: ‘Do you think it’d be possible to create a service like Karuna today?’

‘Of course, she said, ‘charities and not-for-profits are established every day. The challenge would be to sustain it.’

Others clearly feel the same way I do about sustaining Karuna. ‘Look,’ Elisabeth said, pointing around at her office furnishings. ‘Everything is donated, from this painting to my desk. ‘If you like anything and would like to purchase it, it’s yours. Just leave me my laptop!’

I toured the building and saw nurses returned from home visits. An antique rocking horse waiting for the right donor. The room where training events are held. The Learning Coordinator and Counsellor’s office – in 2014 we collaborated on forums about death and dying at Woodford Folk Festival.

Karuna inspires me. Where 70% of Australians would like to die at home, only 14% actually do (Dying Well, Grattan Institute Report, 2014). Karuna turns this around. 83% of those they support die in the place they choose.

As I left Elisabeth gave me a gift. You may have seen publicity and reviews of Cory Taylor’s book Dying, a Memoir. From Cory’s experience, Karuna’s model is right for dying people and their families. It offers relief and assurance. I will treasure Cory’s book, it’s testimony for Karuna.

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Karuna: caring and compassion