Skip to main content

Dying To Know Day 2018

Tuesday, 07 August 2018

‘What to know before you go’ is the theme of this year’s Dying To Know Day on 8 August.

Barwon Health Advance Care Planning program co-ordinator Jill Mann said far too often, patients were leaving their family members with important healthcare decisions to make without any guidance of what their wishes were.

“We challenge everyone today to talk to their loved ones about what would matter most to them, if they were to become seriously unwell,” Jill said.

“Research shows eight in 10 Australians think it’s important to talk to loved ones about their care wishes in the case they become seriously ill, but only one in four have actually had that conversation.

“We see a disconnect between the actions people take and what they know they should do to prepare for the end of their life.

“We’ve tried to make it as simple as possible to start these conversations with our MyValues program at www.myvalues.org.au, which makes it easy for people to create a statement explaining their wishes for end-of-life care.

“This set of specially constructed statements is designed to help you identify, consider and communicate your wishes about the medical treatment you would want in the later stages of life.

“Very few of us die with an advance care directive – less than 10 per cent – so at Barwon Health we encourage these conversations between family members and even clinical staff, if people have any questions.”

Recent Australian research shows:

- 75 per cent of us have not had end-of-life discussion

- 60 per cent think we don’t talk about death enough

- Over 70 per cent of us die in hospital when most of us would prefer to die at home 

Source: JWS Research