Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to talk about some of the wonderful events that I have been able to attend in my electorate of Page over recent times. I attended one in September, when a palliative care volunteers support service invited me to meet with the palliative care volunteers. I was able to listen firsthand to the stories about the wonderful job that they do. It is very exacting work and it is all voluntary but it is also wonderfully enriching. I was able to hear some of those stories. The service has been operating for six years now, all voluntary, supported through Libby Shearer, the manager of volunteer services community programs in Grafton, and supported widely throughout the community and also supported by some of our service clubs. They have given vital support to that service over the years, as some of the clubs do right across our communities. So I want to thank them for the work that they do and for having me there as their guest. I am following up for them to do some advocacy around better services for palliative care. It is one of those issues that really is just care and it is part and parcel of what happens in health. Yes, we always need volunteers to supplement and to complement, but the North Coast Area Health Service does provide some support to the service as well.

Another event I went to was with Uniting Care Ageing, the official opening of their palliative care suite in Lismore. It was an opening and naming ceremony of a special room like a unit, wonderfully done and organised through the Lismore-Caroona auxiliary. It is Kalina Palliative Care Room. It also got a special name on the day, Waratah. It is a special room for end-of-life and the opening was something the whole staff and community and the residents were involved in. Mollie Strong gave the address on behalf of the Uniting Care Ageing North Coast regional board. She is also the state president of the Hospitals Auxiliary for New South Wales and does wonderful work in that role.

I also was going to attend the Kyogle Pastoral, Agricultural and Horticultural Society event. Unfortunately there was lots of rain but we are resilient and still pressed on. I want to thank the president, Les O’Reilly, and secretary Wendy Piggott, but I did not have a voice so I could not actually go and open it.

See this speech in context