Palliative and End of Life Care Services for Local and Eastern European Romany & Traveller Communities
Continuing the quest to raise awareness of the needs of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups on palliative and end of life services, Diversity House, as part of the Learning Alliance attended another seminar at Greenwich University in Medway on 15th September 2017.
The topic for discussion this time round was the needs of Eastern European and Romany, Traveller Groups, their experiences of accessing services, as well as identifying measures of how these services could be improved.
Dr Ebun Abarshi from the Ellenor Hospice kicked off the programme with a reminder that palliative care provides relief, comfort and holistic support to all those with loved ones needing full time professional care. She added that the sector had gone to great lengths to ensure that individualised care is provided to all service users, even as far as meeting cultural and spiritual needs of different communities.
One speaker from the Traveller community shared her family experiences and related how close members were concerned about putting her Father into a home after he’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness. However, once the decision had been made to opt for palliative care, she found the experience, along with family members to be positive, offering quality of life to her father and relief to family members who were not in a position to offer twenty-four-hour care and support. She said that even though her community traditionally wouldn’t think of using such services, they still faced the same pressures as the rest of the population and would have to accept cultural changes.
Diversity House took part in the group discussions later to find ways to proactively engage Eastern European and Traveller communities. Some of the suggestions included taking the seminars and fora out to where the communities are located in Kent such as the fruit picking farms and factories or using diverse modes of communication, including targeting social media and community radio.
Workshop Outcomes
For more about the feedback and information on discussions from the seminar please click the button below.
