The Diocesan Healthcare Ministries Formation Community is holding a formation program on ‘The Good News in End-of-Life Care’ in the cloister Hall at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Parramatta.
These Advent sessions will be held from 7pm to 8.30pm on Wednesday 11 and 18 December.
The three sessions can stand alone.
Session one introduced end-of-life care, and explored some of the contextual issues leading up to the passing of the legislation making voluntary assisted dying legal in NSW.
Session two will explore two medical models of care – the biomedical and the biopsychosocial models – leading up to an understanding of the ‘resurrection model of end-of-life care.’
This is based on what St Paul understands in describing the body as the Temple of the Holy Spirit. The body (understood as soma) as the Temple of the Holy Spirit offers us the possibility to join in the life of the resurrection from the dead. This possibility is realised through baptism.
Finally, session three will look at responses from both the Vatican and the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to the issue of euthanasia and voluntary assisted dying, while offering possible responses based on whether we are family, clergy, health professionals or pastoral ministers to the dying.
All are welcome to attend, including family members facing difficult conversations about voluntary-assisted dying, professionals facing difficult decisions surrounding conscientious objection to cooperating with voluntary-assisted dying, pastoral care visitors needing to deal with difficult questions from patients and family members, high school students considering entering a health profession on leaving school, seminarians and members of clergy.
Registrations can be made to our website and enquiries to Michael.tan@parracatholic.org.
Deacon Dr Michael Tan is a retired GP. He has been a member of the Palliative Care team at Mt. Druitt Hospital, where he assisted dying patients to die at home, writing their death certificates. Before his retirement from clinical practice nine years ago, he was a member of the NSW Palliative Care Network Executive.
