On Monday, a roundtable was held in Orange with the government to discuss palliative care in the region, including the training of more specialists.

Stakeholders from as far as Walgett were invited to attend, including Cancer Council Western NSW community programs coordinator Camilla Barlow.

“There was a concern that because it was hosted in Orange it was all going to be about Orange, but it was very much focused on the Western NSW Local Health District across the board,” Ms Barlow said.

“I took the opportunity to really fly the Dubbo and Mudgee flag.”

Ms Barlow was positive about the roundtable and said it showed the government was hearing the community’s message.

The Cancer Council NSW has been pushing for more palliative care specialists. A petition for 10 additional specialist doctors and 129 palliative nurses has already surpassed the initial goal of 10,000. At the weekend Ms Barlow said the petition reached 10,800.

The community had shown strong support for more palliative care specialists, said Ms Barlow.

“There’s a lot of work being done by local groups such as Push for Palliative and it really shows that the community does care and there is a strong need for it,” Ms Barlow said.

About $2.2 million annually is allocated to the Western NSW LHD for specialist palliative care teams, including funding for 27 clinical staff members across the region. 

Recruitment is currently underway for two additional part-time positions to co-ordinate volunteers across the health district.

While the roundtables will be closed groups with invited stakeholders, the public will have a chance to provide comment on a discussion paper to be released in June, said parliamentary secretary for regional and rural health Leslie Williams.

“I can assure you we want to hear from absolutely everybody who has views on palliative care in their community,” Ms Williams said.

She said part of the discussion would be finding out where palliative services were doing really well and how that could be replicated in other areas.

​“The feedback that we’re getting through the discussions is that we as a government do have more work to do.”

Ms Williams said she was travelling to regional centres to ensure she heard about the gaps in the system. She said she wanted to make sure people who were at the end of their life had the end-of-life-care they wanted.

Western NSW LHD chief executive officer Scott McLachlan said recruiting palliative care specialists was a challenge.

“I am confident that we have some really fantastic staff to support families when they’re going through an end of life experience.”