a community of compassionate care
The Cartwright Street Pre-Loved Art and Jewellery Market is on again, Saturday August 2nd, from 8am to 1pm.
Recycle your art and jewellery NOW by by donating it to the Pre-Loved Art & Jewellery Market. Phone 3632 8300 to arrange drop-off or to organise a free pick-up.
Grab yourself a masterpiece or just a bargain at 27 Cartwright St, Windsor on Saturday 2nd August from 8.00am to 1.00pm.
All proceeds support the wonderful free home hospice care provided by Karuna Hospice Services.
Hello there, just a quick update from website admin.
Lately, some of you may have noticed the Karuna Website has been experiencing some technical difficulties. We have restored basic site functionality now, and hope to have it fully operational by the end of the week.
Thank you for your patience.
Josh
New dates for this Karuna course!
“Where is the real happiness in our lives? Have we lost touch with what it means and how to find it?”
The 16 Guidelines are universal, powerful, and infinitely adaptable. Drawn from ancient Tibetan wisdom they focus on key strategies which will be covered over the following two weekend workshops:
Each weekend looks at a two key strategy and covers eight of the Guidelines. They include step by step exercises to use in your life, allowing you to measure your own progress towards greater happiness and wellbeing. This course is ideal for anyone looking to make genuine progress on their path to a more fulfilling life.
It is not essential to attend both weekends as each workshop covers separate strategies and Guidelines. However, by attending each workshop you will gain maximum benefit through working with all 16 Guidelines.
The workshops will be relaxed and informal, encouraging questions and discussions, facilitated by Buddhist nun Tenzin Chonyi.
About the facilitator
Tenzin Chonyi (Dr Diana Taylor) is a qualified psychologist with many years of professional experience. She teaches courses which demonstrate how ancient techniques can be applied in the modern world with powerful results. Chonyi is a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition.
Cost: $150 per weekend, $220 full course
Time: 10am - 4pm each day
Place: Karuna House, 27 Cartwright St, Windsor
photo by Daniel K. Gebhart, under the creative commons licence
Morning and afternoon tea will be provided - Please bring your lunch.
Places are strictly limited.
Please reserve your place now on 07 3632 8300
Download pdf flyer.
Karuna’s recent computer upgrade to a terminal server allowing additional computer support was proudly funded by the Queensland Government’s Gambling Community Benefit Fund.
Also, the recent upgrade to our office phone system was generously supported by Jupiters Casino Community Benefit Fund.
Karuna would like to thank all the community for its continued support and all the help that goes towards providing a better home hospice service for community.
Please click the image to download the full pdf version of our Summer/Autumn newsletter for 2008.
It was the first St Patrick’s Day dinner I had attended as a volunteer or otherwise, and it was a fun night… as Nev Wells said… he likes to give the punters value for money and it was that indeed…
Kay and Veronica were there for Karuna, as was Frank Curran, current president of the Knights of the Southern Cross, Everton Park Branch (the organisers). Many remarked on the delicious food (truly a St Patricks day feast… including Guiness Pie), and the efficiency of the volunteer waiting staff!!
Nev Wells (Branch Secretary) is a true entertainer, telling stories, jokes, singing and running many raffles as well. On top of this we were delighted by Irish dancing and the wonderful singing of Sue Wighton.
The Knights of the Southern Cross have been running St Patrick’s Day dinners for Karuna for 8 years now and have raised over $30,000 for us.
This is an extraordinary achievement and we are very grateful for this ongoing support.
Sally Dudgeon (Community Liaison).
Hospice as a philosophy or value was first applied to a national health service by Dame Cecily Saunders who in the 1960s started a revolution in the care and treatment of the terminally ill. As a young doctor Cecily Saunders undertook to change the plight of cancer patients who were dying in hospital wards where staff were preoccupied with curative treatment. At the time of Saunders’ reform in care of the dying, cancer patients often suffered aggressive treatment almost to the point of death.
Throughout history the term hospice has been synonymous with devotion,kindness, compassion and caring, values that aligned perfectly with Cecily Saunders’ proposed model of total care for the terminally ill.
During the forty and more years since Dame Cecily first challenged the health care system to take better care of the terminally ill, the values of hospice have evolved into the science of palliation. Palliation is a useful term because while hospice defines the philosophy palliation describes the practice.
Palliative care was suggested by another hospice pioneer, Professor Balfour Mount from Canada, because the Latin and Greek meaning of palliation is to cloak or cover and some say to shield. Thus palliative care means to cloak or minimise the symptoms of advanced disease while at the same time shielding the patients and their loved ones from unnecessary harm caused by the situation.
Care and Caring
A distinguishing feature of the modern hospice movement is the alignment of palliation with care. I believe it was Balfour Mount who asserted that without ‘care’, palliation lacks distinction. Without ‘care’ palliation would be a ‘no frills’ mechanical process of symptom management and body maintenance, with no acknowledgement of the effects on the human experience and relationships.
Karuna Hospice Services by its name is declaring a commitment to compassionate care that embraces the total dimension of the human experience dealing with serious illness and the end of life. Kindness, compassion and care are fundamental qualities and care-giving an essential skill of Karuna’s staff and services.
Care and care giving is always in danger of being devalued as no more than ‘common sense’ or something that ‘just comes naturally’. While it may be an innate human quality, caring for seriously ill and vulnerable people is an art requiring complex skills. There is a science of caring as demonstrated by the numerous studies on, for example the elements of a caring relationship, the qualities of good care givers and the effects of care deprivation on infant development.
Hospice-Palliative Care in the 21st century
An important responsibility of the modern hospice-palliative care movement is to ensure that patients receive ‘evidence based’ or ‘best-practice’ clinical, psychosocial, spiritual and cultural care. This means that clients and families can be assured that the treatment or services offered are ‘tried and tested’ or proven in other ways to be the most appropriate for their situation.
Karuna Hospice Services is involved in several state and national projects that are working to improve services and meet standards of best practice. An example is Palliative Care Outcome Collaborative (PCOC) which is concerned with collecting data about practice and outcomes from which the standards of best practice can be determined.
Karuna is the lead organisation of a Commonwealth funded education project for registered nurses.The Specialist Nurse Education Project (SNEP) aims to prepare nurses as beginning level palliative care specialists. The SNEP course, which was developed with the Centre for Palliative Care Research and Education and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, received credit worthy status in postgraduate nursing courses at QUT.
Karuna is also working with the Palliative Care Network and Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative to develop best-practice guidelines for the handling of medications in the community.
Evidence-based or best practice is quite rightly the mantra of 21st century hospice-palliative care. The qualities of kindness, compassion and caring that underpin Karuna Hospice Services, while more difficult to define are never-the-less subject to scrutiny. Good care should be evident by the client’s quality of life, the family’s peace of mind and the enhanced self-esteem and self-confidence of the staff and others.
It’s wonderful that Karuna provides such a quality service.
by Dr Deborah Prior RN.PhD. FRCNA, Chairperson
An opportunity to pause on your journey since the loss of someone you love and reflect on how this has changed your life…
This course is ideal for anyone touched by the death of a loved one and interested in looking more deeply with others on the impact of this experience and how it has altered their understanding and approach to life.
Over 6 evenings we will explore the following themes:
The evenings will be relaxed and gentle with opportunities for questions and discussion.
About the facilitator:
Andrew Lindsay is a registered psychologist and counsellor working with Karuna Hospice Services. Through this work he has made many connections both with people as they approach the end of their lives and with people affected by the loss of someone close and dear. He is sustained and inspired by the richness of the human spirit and the touching possibilities within human relationships.
Dates: 6 Wednesday evenings - 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th April and 7th May
Time: 6.30pm - 8.30pm
Place: Karuna House, 27 Cartwright St, Windsor
Cost: $150
photo by fangars, licenced creative commons
Bookings are essential as places are limited. Please book by phoning 07 3632 8300.
download the Life After Death pdf flyer
The Summer/Autumn Karuna Newsletter is now available. Download the Karuna News Summer/Autumn 2008 in pdf format. The following is just one article from the newsletter.
My mother, Gienia, was diagnosed with Lymphoma when my youngest son was 6 months old. We called her Ba. She had been Ba for the last 17 years and got the name from my nephew who called her that because Grandma was such a big word when he was very little.The name stuck. Ba coped really well with the first round of chemotherapy. She lost her hair but was still driving and getting around. But the cancer was still there so a second round was scheduled to begin on Boxing Day 2006.
Ba with grandsons Ryan and Josh
We had a lovely Christmas with Mum making her usual enormous plum pudding that we struggled to carry to the table. Mum knew what lay ahead but was upbeat and positive because she had already coped extremely well with one round of treatment and she was determined that she could manage another.We did not realise that this would be our last Christmas together. The second round of chemotherapy was very strong and she spent most of the year in and out of hospital. She was very weak and frustrated by her condition. Mum had always been very active and would fill her days helping others. She wanted to play with her small grandsons but it was all a little too much. A course of radiation followed the chemotherapy. Unbelievably, the cancer was still growing.The doctors sent her home to live the rest of her life. There was no timeframe - she could have years. As it turned out, it was less than 2 months.
My mother was frightened of dying alone and wanted to stay with me for as long as she could. My sister arrived from Mackay to help and that is when we first heard about Karuna.
We were asked, “What do you need”? We really did not know. The lovely Alice arrived the next day. She was so capable and reassuring and instantly we knew that we could do this. A bed arrived later in the day and my sister and I were relieved we had a 24 hour number for assistance.
Ba was deteriorating; she could no longer get out of bed and was barely eating. One Tuesday, Alice said that she was slipping faster than expected and she estimated Ba had less than a week. Alice or Lynda were there every day providing much needed advice and support, along with practical help with bathing, bed changing and pain management.
Our Ba lost her brave battle with cancer at 3.30am Monday 3rd September. She passed with one hand in my sister’s hand and the other in mine.
Ba’s calm and peaceful passing would not have been possible without the fantastic support from Karuna. I know that Ba really appreciated the assistance my sister and I received. She knew that without Karuna she would not have been able to stay at home listening to her grandsons play and giggle.
By Carol Ferris
Mandala Books has a limited number of hard back editions of the Dalai Lama’s Stages of Meditation selling at the paperback price of $24.95!!! This is the main book for his teachings in Sydney in June so they will sell quickly! Call Mick at Mandala on 3632 8380 to place your order.
Mandala Books is now open every 1st Saturday of the month from 10am to 1pm, starting on the 1st of March. Come along on Saturday to catch some opening specials!
