PALLIATIVE care campaigners in Tamworth have been told by the Deputy Premier the current system is ‘not good enough’.
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John Barilaro met with local campaigners Mitch Williams and Lucy Haslam last month and made the commitment to improve the region’s services.
It’s the strongest commitment from the state government yet, Mr Williams said.
But 14 months into their campaign, the slow progress continues to frustrate the advocates, who are pushing for a boost to palliation staffing numbers to help the region’s most-ill, die with dignity.
“I know you can’t treat politics like business, but there is a lot of people in a lot pain and there are a lot of people suffering in the New England at the moment due to the slow nature of decisions being made,” Mr Williams told The Leader.
Mr Williams said it was a “huge positive” to put the case for palliative care directly to the Deputy Premier.
There are a lot of people suffering in the New England at the moment due to the slow nature of decisions being made.
- Palliative care campaigner Mitch Williams
“He has made a commitment on behalf of the Nationals to look at improving service in the New England area and he is going to be investigating that,” he said.
“So we’re looking forward to some good news coming off the back of that.”
“14 months for one person is a very slow-moving boat,” Mr Williams said.
“We need to get that rocking along because at the end of the day, we’re still three to four people short.”
While Mr Williams said Tamworth was a long way behind the eight-ball, he said if new money was put into the system, the region could go from last to first and become a regional NSW leader in palliative care.
“Give it a good injection of capital, build a beautiful system with recurrent funding, that then works,” he said.
“They can then use that for other regions in NSW when and where it’s needed.”
The Deputy Premier was approached for comment.