As Australia's population ages, state and territory governments will need to scale up preparation and investment into palliative care services. The first baby boomers are set to turn 85 in under a decade, and will need more support during their final years.
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00:00Six years ago, Jan Casteel received the news about her husband that she never wanted to hear.
00:07You go through all sorts of stages. There's the denial, this is not happening to me, but it had happened to his mother, so we knew that the chances were there.
00:18Jan only accessed support from palliative care two days before her husband of 52 years died from dementia. She wishes help came earlier.
00:27I would have been able to have someone to talk through what was happening for me to be able to see more clearly instead of being involved so much in the moment of caring.
00:40Ms Casteel is one of thousands of patients and carers expected to need palliative care services like counselling and pain management over the next decade.
00:49We need to be preparing now for what I see as a baby boomer freight train of ageing heading straight for us.
00:58With the first baby boomer turning 85 in just eight years' time, planning to meet increased demand for palliative care will be crucial.
01:06By 2050, around 200,000 Australians are expected to require support from palliative care services.
01:12In Tasmania, where demand is expected to be greatest, a new report has found the current system is difficult to navigate and relies too much on unpaid carers.
01:21Advocates are calling for palliative care services to be prioritised.
01:26The way that we look after our sick, our dying and our bereaved is a reflection on who we are as a society, so we need to prioritise it.
01:3657-year-old Judy Adams lives with pancreatic cancer. She hopes that change happens soon.
01:42You need to be able to treat the soul and nourish the soul and the heart and the mind.
01:48My hope would be that there's more community acceptance and there's more acceptance at the levels of government where they make decisions about how things might be funded.
01:59More care and planning needed for one of life's few certainties.
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