A damning report by the Australian Catholic University’s PM Glynn Institute has found that Australia has less than half of the recommended number of palliative care doctors needed to take care of dying and chronically ill patients.

The ACU study, released last month, recorded that in Australia there are 0.9 palliative care doctors per 100,000 people. The recommended rate is currently two per 100,000.

The same report also found that the number of people hospitalised for palliative care is increasing at an average rate of 5 per cent every year.

The rate of growth is even more marked among children. Since 2011-12, the rate of palliative care hospitalisations among under-15s rose by more than 10 per cent every year.

Dr Cris Abbu, the author of the ACU study, observed that: “Palliative care remains one of the least preferred specialisations of medical students for future practice and the rates of full-time equivalent palliative medicine physicians and palliative care nurses have remained unchanged since 2013 despite the increasing demand…

“We need to encourage more doctors and nurses to choose this important work… Given an ageing population and an increase in the incidence of chronic illnesses, both of which imply increasing need for palliative care services, the burden on public hospitals is likely to increase in the future unless we find workable alternatives.”

Dr Abbu also said that: “People say voluntary-assisted dying is about giving patients a choice but if dying patients cannot access the palliative care services they need, they don’t really have a free choice

“A parody of compassion”

Michael Robinson, SPUC Director of Communications, said:“This damning report was published prior to the Australian state of Tasmania’s vote, this week, to become the third state to pass voluntary assisted dying legislation.

“It appears that there is wilful blindness when it comes to palliative care in Australia and elsewhere. Australia has a chronic shortage of doctors able to provide quality care for chronically and terminally ill patients, as this study shows. That demand is growing all the time.

“It is also clear that, as Dr Abbu notes, in such circumstances patients have little choice but to opt for death rather than appropriate care.

“Do MPs really care about patients or are they simply content to sign the death warrants of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of vulnerable Australians in what amounts to a parody of compassion? Such compassion is ultimately false and dangerous.”