Giving dignity to life in trying terms

Giving dignity to life


Anton McNulty spoke to Achill Palliative Care nurse Carmen Latimer about the challenges facing her profession

WHEN families are faced with a life debilitating or terminal illness of a loved one, the realisation of such news can be difficult and take time to sink in. The news can often be sudden and unexpected and depending on the illness the patient’s demise can take a matter of weeks while others can take months.
Faced with these problems many families are referred by their GP’s to a palliative care nurse who is responsible for providing the best possible care for the patient and the family. For most people who think of palliative care, they think of preparing for death but for Carmen Latimer the clinical nurse specialist in palliative care based in Achill, it is about optimising the quality of a patient’s life.
“Palliative care is not just about dying, it is about living, every day living and giving quality and dignity to their life. Families do have lot of worries regarding referral to palliative care but we try to allay those fears and explain that palliative care is about living and the focus is not on dying. We bring them from initial stages of shock and disbelief of diagnosis to the ability to cope and care for loved ones at home,” she explained.
Working in tandem with the GP’s, public health nurses and occupational therapists, Carmen said the the treatments and services available now to patients have improved vastly in recent years and praised the work of the Mayo / Roscommon Hospice in helping to provide these services.
“It is very hard for people to come face to face with your own demise and for some people it can be very difficult and that is understandable. We have access to extra counselling - which is funded by Mayo/Roscommon Hospice - for not just the person given the diagnosis but also for family members. You are numbed, shocked and in disbelief and we try to aid them as best we can.
“Therapies and treatments have really improved and people do live a lot longer with life limiting diseases. We have the support of Mayo / Roscommon Hospice which helps to fund any extra services that we think that will help for families. We have sitters that are provided by the Mayo / Roscommon Hospice which means sitters can sit in with families and give them a break and allow them to leave their loved ones knowing they were be cared for. We also arrange for complimentary financial support to take away that worry and concern and allow the family focus on the patient.’
Carmen worked for a number of years in large hospitals in London and noticed that elderly patients were never given the time they deserved. When she came to Achill, she worked in St Colman’s Care Centre and while they did not have many resources, they did have was time and ability to sit and talk and observe the patients. This she said was much more humbling and she enjoys the interaction with the patients and families.
“It is humbling work and you do become something like an intimate stranger where you get to know the family very well and you get very involved with them. Everyday is so different and you never know when you knock on the door what you might face. You have to be professional but that is not say we don’t have fun and a laugh, and having a sense of humour does help, you be lost without it especially in this area.”