We need to talk about dying

Whether by choice or weight of numbers, more of us will die at home in future. And with pressure to ease assisted dying restrictions, the gaps in community-based care need fixing - before time runs out.

- SARAH CATHERALL

Emily has been given six months to live and is trying to spend as much time as possible with her two children, who are naturally devastated their mother is dying.

In the recent school holidays, the 42-yearold took her daughter, 14, and son, 11, to Kāpiti Island for the day. Another goal is to go to Tekapo to see the night sky.

But most of the time Emily - a single parent is forced to deal with the bone-aching fatigue of metastasised breast cancer and what she has to do, and cannot do, to get through her day. Twice a week, she taxis to a Wellington pharmacy to get her opioid painkillers and chemotherapy pill - she isn't allowed to drive. Often, the script is not correctly filled out due to errors at the pharmacy or by her GP. On a recent trip, Emily "turned on the waterworks".

"I told them: 'I've got a terminal illness so I've got limited life left. I do not want to stand in this pharmacy for 20 minutes, twice a week, looking at you. I don't want to do that"." 

The Te Omanga Hospice sits in manicured grounds down a long driveway in Lower Hutt. It's a sanctuary for Emily (not her real name), who goes there once a week for everything from counselling and art therapy to social catch-ups. On a sunny morning in late April, she sits in one of the common rooms with her friend Heather, a 75-year-old who is also terminally ill with cancer, and they talk about what it is like to be dying in Aotearoa today.