Our General Manager Disability Janet Wagland was proud to attend an event to launch WA Health’s revised Advance Health Directive (ADH) last week.
With more than 32 years’ experience at Brightwater and a keen interest in palliative care, Janet was excited to see years of planning and consultation come to fruition.
“The revised directive began with the Joint Select Committee on End of Life Choices in 2017 which made a number of recommendations,” she said. “This included the formation of the Expert Panel on Voluntary Assisted Dying (and resulted in the Voluntary Assisted Dying Legislation being enacted) and the Expert Panel on Advance Health Directives, which I was a member of.
The expert panel made recommendations that included the need to revise the existing state Advance Health Directive and the formation of a register for storing AHDs.
“The Health Department team has done an amazing job to consult with a range of stakeholders, resulting in the development of a more user-friendly and comprehensive Directive and tools to assist consumers and health professionals with the process of advance care planning.”
More than 400 people attended the launch in person or online and Janet was part of a panel which discussed why the new advance care planning tools are important.
“Work on the register continues,” she added. “But it will go ahead and will help individuals, their families and service providers to more easily access a person’s AHD and ensure that the most recent version is available.”
Janet said Brightwater was committed to refining its processes to ensure every client can have the opportunity to engage in advance care planning. Learn more about advance care planning here.
Image courtesy WA Department of Health (Janet is pictured far left).
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