By Kate Lockyer
Not-for-profit organisation Karuna Hospice Services has been breaking down the taboo of death for 30 years through home palliative care centred on the Buddhist value of compassion.
Chairman Dr John Gilmour said Karuna is “purely about community and home-based care… it’s really about working with families in their homes and community”.
Karuna provides no-cost care for about 200 families a year in North Brisbane, as far as Caboolture and Bribie Island.
He said they have a multidisciplinary team that focuses not only on medical care and pain relief but also counselling, bereavement care and spiritual support for the whole family.
“Unfortunately, as the event happens, even after the patient passes, we continue our service to the family with bereavement support to help them along that journey.”
Dr Gilmour said home care fits with their ethos of deinstitutionalising and normalising death.
“If you think about it, at the turn of the 19th century, most people died at home… at the turn of this century, most people die in hospitals.”
Dr Gilmour said he came across death in his previous roles as a paediatric physiotherapist and through his management work at the Mater Hospital and Ronald McDonald House, but nothing like what he has seen at Karuna.
He has noticed that Western culture still has a fear of death.
“We want to be immortal, we want to fight it. Buddhist teachings talk about the fact it’s just inevitable, and we’re better to actually face it much more acceptingly rather than fighting it,” he said.
“It’s not wanting to expedite it, but it’s just saying we should look at it differently – it’s just a part of the journey in life.”
Karuna was founded 30 years ago in the Mahayana Tibetan Buddhist tradition by Venerable Pende Hawter, a monk who had previously been a physiotherapist.
Dr Gilmour said the Buddhist belief in kindness and compassion as fundamental values when caring for people is what most attracted him, and many other staff members, to Karuna.
Nonetheless, they are inclusive and non-discriminatory, and Dr Gilmour said essentially they “help explore what it is that patients see at the end of their life”.
Their resident Buddhist nun Tsultrim runs a podcast called What About Death!? where she has talked to people such as Samuel Johnson and Bindi Irwin on the subject of death, available on all major podcast platforms.
“Tsultrim keeps that that direct connection with our Buddhist foundations,” Dr Gilmour said.
“She’s an Aussie lady who found the religion some time ago, and she’s a really important part of the team.
“She’s a qualified counsellor and is here to support our staff as well as our patients.”
While some of their funding comes from a contract with Queensland Health, they are also reliant on private and corporate donations.
Dr Gilmour said they are hoping to generate more funding to expand the service to other parts of Brisbane.
To find out more about Karuna’s services or how to donate and support their work, visit www.karuna.org.au.
They also run weekly Monday Meditation sessions at 4pm at their base in Windsor.
Photo Caption: Chairman John Gilmour at Karuna House, which was first built in the 1850s and is now used as a base for Karuna Hospice Services