34
Irish Hospice Foundation
Toolkit for Compassionate End-of-Life Care
Facilitating family meetings When facilitating family meetings, it is useful to be aware of the fact that each family member is an individual with his/her own needs and coping skills/styles. It is also important to be alert to the possibility of family conflicts (old or newly-arising) and to ensure a safe place for people to express concerns. Family meetings can provide the opportunity to: • Create a shared approach to the care of the person who is dying. “What would your mother want for herself if she could tell us?” • Listen to family members and clarify each person’s understanding of their relative’s condition. “How do you think your mother is doing?” • Anticipate family members’ needs in terms of support. What are they struggling with most at the moment? “I can see you are upset; how can I help?” • Enable their involvement in care, including symptom management, communication and assisting with the physical care needs of the person if they wish. • Explore how the death of the person may impact, emotionally and physically, on different members of the family.
Supporting families: additional considerations related to infectious diseases
“I wasn’t allowed to be with Mum at the very end. I ʚnd it very hard to accept the fact that she has died. I think had I been able to bear witness to her death, I wouldn’t be feeling this way.”
Being prevented from spending precious time with a loved one as they come to the end of their life causes immense distress and anguish for everyone concerned. ose last few weeks, days, hours and minutes can be significantly important to some people. It’s the time to say those things that might have been unsaid before. It’s a time for forgiveness and reconciliation, a time for apologies and ‘I love you’. Visiting by friends, relatives and carers should be supported and enabled as much as possible by staff. HPSC and HSE guidance supports visiting to be facilitated for end-of-life care situations .
Being there for and with a loved one as they die can be a source of comfort for the bereaved. If this is prohibited, it can negatively impact on the grieving process.
IHFstrongly recommends that priority is given to those visiting people receiving end-of-life care.
Care of the Dying Person 4
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker