About the Forum
The Forum on End of Life in Ireland involves a unique year-long engagement with the public on end-of-life issues.
It is engaging with all sectors of society to develop a vision of how modern Ireland can address the challenges of dying, death and bereavement.
We want the Forum to help to ensure that a quality approach to care exists throughout all services provided to the public in order to facilitate a good death - when it is expected or can be predicted.
It will also strive to ensure that supportive systems are in place when a death occurs unexpectedly.
The Forum was launched by the President, Mary McAleese, on Wednesday March 11, 2009, at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in Dublin. (Please click here to read President Mary McAleese's speech at the opening ceremony on March 11, 2009)
The proceedings and outcomes of the Forum are governed by the principles and values of hospice and palliative care. Life is affirmed and dying is regarded as a normal process, Death is neither hastened nor postponed. Pain and other distressing symptoms are relieved. (Report of the National Advisory Committee on Palliative Care).
The Forum will conclude at the end of 2009 and a series of regional consultations will be organised during 2010. A final report is expected to be published by April 30, 2010.
A National Coalition will then be established to advance the vision and action plan which emerge from the work of the Forum.
Issues
The Forum will examine a range of issues around end of life in Ireland such as the models of care which are available to older people, the trend towards hospitalisation at the expense of home and community-based services; the situation of carers; regulation of the funeral industry; the trauma of prenatal or sudden infant death; the need for the public to engage in advance care planning and registering their care preferences and the needs of families affected by suicide or homicide.
Nearly 100 organisations have been approached informally so far including the various faith groups, lawyers, human rights advocates, carers, emergency services, critical illness groups, trade unions, businesses and funeral directors. The vast majority of these organisations have agreed in principle to take part in the workshops that are being scheduled for this year.
Advertisements have been placed in national newspapers seeking written submissions which will also help to shape a detailed work programme for the Forum. This website, www.endoflife.ie, will be updated regularly.
The Forum on End of Life in Ireland is one of a number of initiatives which have been launched in recent years by the Irish Hospice Foundation. One of these is the pioneering Hospice Friendly Hospitals Programme which aims to put hospice principles into hospital practice. This Programme is now operating in more than 40 community and acute hospitals countrywide.