A PROMINENT retired physician and palliative care advocate will travel to Dubbo on Monday to lobby federal MP Mark Coulton for better end-of-life care in the region.
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Dr Yvonne McMaster has for some time argued Dubbo needed its own specialist palliative care physician.
"I want to let him know how bad the situation is in his electorate and hopefully he will speak to (Dubbo MP) Troy Grant and tell him it's time for change in Dubbo," she said.
"Palliative care is mainly funded by the state government but I have found in the past that the federal member does have an interest in the welfare of his constituents and can help by complaining to the state member."
Dr McMaster said while Dubbo had various specialists, including an oncologist, there was a large number of patients with advanced cancer and complex symptoms who needed specialist palliative care.
"Palliative care can also assist with comfort care for people with heart failure, kidney failure, respiratory failure and dementia," she said.
Dr McMaster said Dubbo residents needing in-home palliative care were served by two specialist palliative care nurses based at Lourdes Hospital, supported by a Dubbo-based senior specialist nurse, who had to serve a massive region including Dubbo and surrounding districts that included Cobar, Nyngan, Bourke and Coonamble.
She said it was a big ask for the nurses to service Dubbo, let alone a region of more than 100,000.
And there was "no relief for holidays, sickness, maternity or study leave", she said.
Regarding Dubbo's need for a specialist palliative care physician, Dr McMaster said, the NSW government would do well to recognise the difference one had made in Broken Hill.
Despite Dubbo being a larger centre, Dr McMaster said, Broken Hill had been fortunate enough to secure a specialist palliative care physician "by chance".
"She had moved there with her husband who was working there and from all reports it's made an enormous difference, a much greater satisfaction from patients who have been treated by a palliative care specialist," she said.
"It makes a big difference in a clinical sense, in that there are plenty of complex cases, especially with cancer, where Aboriginal patients in particular in western areas have presented with the disease very late.
"It (the cancer) is very advanced and it can be physically and emotionally challenging to treat. It often takes a specialist palliative care physician to do that."
Dr McMaster said she also planned to meet with Dubbo deputy mayor Ben Shields, palliative care ambassador Barb O'Brien and Women Out West representative Jan Grady during the Dubbo visit.
