Ms Condon,

I was tempted to give a response as I was a witness to palliative care extended to my younger sister with terminal breast cancer. But the question as formulated raised so many questions in my mind, that I thought I would ask for an explanation.

If you talk about indigenous peoples, then you probably have in mind a western or European  population where there are the remnants indigenous peoples, as in North America, or South America. I note, however, that you are at Griffith University, and that is in Australia – so I appear to be right.  A quick answer would be that an indigenous person terminally ill will want to be treated with respect if he or she wants  certain rites intrinsic to his/her culture or religion to be performed. As I live outside a geographical area where there are no “indigenous” peoples, I will not attempt a suitable  answer. I would think if you offer  some explanation, some others visiting Researchgate  may well be in a position to provide a useful answer. However, you can try to access this paper from the Medical Journal of Australia: Maddocks, I. &  Rayner, R.G. (2003). Issues in palliative care for indigenous communities, Medical J of Australia, 179(6): 17.

In relation to indigenous medication or practices, the question is who would have filed patents to protect their cultural heritage?  I remember that in South Africa,  the government tried to get some  payments to be made to some people who used a certain root  to keep at bay hunger and thirst among the local hunters while away from home on long hunting trips. A western pharmaceuticals company apparently got a patent related to that vegetable root and the government was trying to right a wrong.

Dear Mr Barbonis,

Yes, you are right, I am interested in the Western approach to palliative care and the potential discrepancies with regard to Indigenous beliefs and cultures, particularly in Australia. I have reviewed quite a number of related peer reviewed literature, but have not found much information to what degree education and training of palliative care staff include consideration of Indigenous beliefs. For example, who and what gender should the person be in order to be allowed to care for the terminally ill patient, or should an Indigenous person be allowed to return to their home to pass and how this request is being dealt with by palliative care medical staff.

I have created a list of resources relating to Australian Indigenous people which you may find useful.  Please see link. I am very interested in this discussion. Steve

http://centreforpallcare.org/education/vapcc/resources/

Thank you very much, Steve. Your link is a very useful resource. I am located in QLD and a comparison to what is available here is relevant to my literature review and the small research project that I am working on.

For a wider review of Death and Bereavement across Cultures see  the multi-contributor book of this title. This was written with the object of preparing palliative care staff for unfamiliar ethnic/religious groups in their midst. In the course of writing it the editors found themselves challenged in many ways. Tony Walters' chapter on Secularisation is particularly important .

We (Canadian virtual hospice- virtual hospice.ca) are about to release these educational video resources focused on providing culturally and spiritually sensitive palliative care to Canada's First Nation, Inuit and Metis populations next week.  Here are the rough cuts which you might find helpful in your endeavour.

Ceremony, Tradition and Spirituality at End of Life

https://vimeo.com/139541225

Palliative Care: Caring for patients and their families

https://vimeo.com/140868833

A Good Death: Helping a loved one die at home

https://vimeo.com/141214311

After Death Ceremonies and Grief

https://vimeo.com/141868139

Thank you very much for sharing these, I am sure to find there helpful information and further inspiration.