'Unsung heroes' need a rest: Friends of Nioka care group kicks off campaign for new Tamworth palliative respite unit

The group says the city needs a new unit with about 20 beds, to back up the small army of family and friends who care for about 60 or 70 local palliative care patients.

Veteran doctor Philip Hungerford, who works in the Tamworth hospital's six-bed Nioka palliative care unit, said many dying people don't want to die in a hospital, or aren't yet ready for inpatient care.

The burden of caring for them often falls on those closest to them, he said - but life often gets in the way, leaving palliative patients with few options.

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He gave a hypothetical example, to protect the identity of a real patient.

A bed-bound lady with motor neuron disease is cared for by her sole carer husband 24/7 - but he leaves town for a few days to attend his mother's funeral in Sydney.

"The only real option open to him is to call an ambulance and get her taken to hospital and get her looked after in hospital - the acute hospital that is," he said.

"She gets in there, lies around for a day or two in the emergency waiting for a bed to come up. No bed comes up in Nioka because Nioka is full. So she ends up in a surgical ward; that's the only place there's a bed. She's looked after by a nurse that's looking after her and five other post-op surgical patients. It just doesn't work. Everyone does the best they can. It's a pretty miserable experience for her.

"That kind of person just needs general palliative care nursing care. If there was somewhere where her husband could just ring up and say 'have you got a bed for a couple of days' and they just kind of went straight there, into their room, that would be a fantastic thing."

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The palliative care doctor said scenarios like that one are common among his patients.

He said the new unit would offer respite, by admitting palliative patients for short periods. It would give the group he described as the city's "unsung heroes" a much-needed break, he said.

"It's a job with 24 hour shifts back to back, that's the trouble," he said.

"Some of them, their needs are quite high, and their carers are exhausted.

"It's not like they can go after a day's work and put their feet up. They're always on call."

Friends of Nioka vice president Bryan Singh said the advocacy group had been working with the support of local health professionals on fine-tuning a proposal to government, that would fill a gap in services currently available.

He said many patients choose to be cared for - or even die - in their own homes.

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Mr Singh cared for his own father, Keith, for a month before he went into Nioka and ultimately died.

"It can be wonderful looking after people at home, and they're happy, and we often get requests for people that are in Nioka, to actually just go home for a day or so and then come back," he said.

"But the carers need this. This is a caring for the carers as much as the patients."

He said they were looking for a facility more like a guest house than a hospital ward, with enough staff to offer "respite care".

Member for Tamworth Kevin Anderson has backed the group in their efforts to win funding for the plan.

The MP gave the group an introduction to state regional health minister Bronnie Taylor on a recent visit to the city, which they used the introduce her to the model.

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"Their work has resulted in real positive outcomes for our community so when they came to me with a proposal to enhance palliative care in our region, I was very keen to work with them to see what more could be done to support patients," he said.

"Following a meeting with the Regional Health Minister in August, the Minister was keen to hear more about the proposal. That information has now been provided and I look forward to continuing to work with Friends of Nioka to advocate for better services in our region."

Mr Singh said the campaign will become an election issue, with the NSW state election scheduled for March 2023.

"I think it'd be part of the election discussion for sure," he said.

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