Annual Forum

5 September 2018

This year’s forum was held in Sydney with approximately 17 attendees, made up of nurses, training registrars, medical specialists and social work. We managed to pull-off the technological feat of having two recorded presentations. The first was from Shalini AJ, senior project officer with Pallium India, who detailed the many aspects of palliative care development undertaken by the organisation. In particular, she spoke of her current project working with primary care clinicians, community organisations and even paramilitary forces in regional Assam, in the far north-east of India. The second was from Brett Sutton, giving an update on the work done by the Palliative Care in Humanitarian Aid Settings and Emergencies.

Odette Spruijt gave an overview of Project Hamrahi and the sensitive approach required by volunteer mentors, following which we were given wonderful examples of this being put into action. Sarah Begley spoke of the incredible community-based service in Lakshadweep led by local teacher, Moulana; Joan Ryan reported on behalf of the evolving team which has been working with Ravi Kannan at the Cachar Cancer Centre in Assam over a number of years now; and as reported elsewhere in this newsletter, Delamy Keall passed on the pearls of wisdom she learnt in Trivandrum (together with the warning that we must never, ever over-stay the time-limit on our Indian visa!).

For lunch we enjoyed an Indian banquet organised by our logistical mastermind, Chris Drummond – huge thanks and kudos to her for keeping us organised both beforehand and on the day. Finally, thank you also to Jane Phillips, Meera Agar, Catherine Lambert and Maja Garcia for giving us a venue at the University of Technology Sydney and for practical help on the day.

As good as the presentations were, the key to the success of the day most surely was the willingness for all attendees to contribute freely and openly to the discussion. If you haven’t attended our annual forum previously or if you are interested in hearing about the amazing work being done in our region, keep an eye out for next year’s event.