Caring hands of Mercy Street

THE palliative care unit at Bendigo Health is celebrating twenty-five years of providing care to terminally ill patients.

Situated on Mercy Street, the clinic was once part of Stella Anderson nursing home but has operated as a stand-alone clinic since 1998.

Deanna Keogh, a carer at the facility, said the anniversary was about acknowledging the patients the service had looked after.

“We’re here day to day and I know we do a job to make the place function, but it’s actually all about the patients we’ve had the privilege to look after, and remembering them and honouring their memory,” she said.

The carers at Mercy Street focus their work on hospice patients and their families, a practice that requires leaving their own troubles at the door.

“I think it’s hard, we rely on each other very much,” she said. “I go to the auxiliary meetings and I just chat in the meetings, I lean on everyone that I can, we lean on each other.”

Val Truant, president of the Bendigo palliative care auxiliary, has personally seen three close relatives receive care from the hospice, including her sister who passed at the age of 51.

“My mum didn’t come here but she was at home and the hospice would come out,” Ms Truant said.

“It was totally different from my sister to my mum, my sister had everything to live for, but my mum was 91.

“She was grateful she had such a long life and she was happy, whereas my sister had so much to live for.”

The personal experience of loss is something many of the carers relate to, having seen community members and occasionally hospice staff pass through the hospice.

“There’s nothing that makes sense about it, you can’t understand why a 20, or a 50-year-old is dying,” Ms Keogh said.

“You just put it away and not focus on that, you focus on what you can do to help and that might mean a nice rug, a cup of tea, a better bed.”

Staff at the hospice, with support from the auxiliary, do what they can to help people feel at ease, including allowing family and pets to stay.

“It should always be about that person, that family,” Ms Keogh said.