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An international campaign to restore compassion in healthcare Compassion is the humane quality of understanding suffering in others and wanting to do something about it. From small beginnings in New Zealand, an international dialogue and network is starting to take shape. Please join us in this endeavour. Pioneers in a number of countries are starting to connect and there is a powerful sense of a growing movement. We believe the leaders we need are already in place to support this change in many different places. If we align our efforts we can transform healthcare from within. The strategies for change are outlined below. The New Zealand Centre for Compassion in Healthcare The beginning of change in New Zealand At the inaugural charity dinner in Auckland on October 26th, $32,000 was raised to support a national Centre for Compassion in Healthcare. The Centre is being supported by the West Auckland Health Services Foundation and Waitemata District Health Board. The Centre will be based at Waitakere Hospital. A short film was commissioned for the opening event, featuring the work of Cameron Duncan, the talented young NZ filmmaker who died of cancer. Cameron's story was woven into existing footage of patient stories and a new interview with Dr Robin Youngson, exploring the issues of caring and compassion and the difficulties that professionals face in dealing with these issues. The film is profoundly moving and will be made available as a resource through the Centre. The Centre for Compassion is not a place we will take our patients for care. It's a place to gather resources to support programmes in our hospitals that begin to put the heart back into caring. It will hold charitable funds so that the Centre can make grants to small programmes in many hospitals across New Zealand, that seek to raise awareness, that give permission for health professionals to talk about their own vulnerability and about issues of caring and compassion. We aim to repeat the success of the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center in the USA, which is dedicated to strengthening the relationship between patients and caregivers. (www.theschwartzcenter.org) The Schwartz Center is now supporting programmes in more than a hundred hospitals including Multidisciplinary compassion rounds Annual compassionate caregiver awards Seminars on "difficult conversations" A speaker programme Promoting the practice of apology A document with further details of the proposed centre can be viewed here. At the same place you can download a keynote address by Dr Robin Youngson, "Humanity and Compassion in Medical Practice", delivered at the 12th International Holistic Health Conference in August. The NZ pilot programmes will begin at Waitakere Hospital later this year. We have a number of inspiring speakers lined up for a "Humanity in Healthcare" lecture series - see Upcoming Events. Hospital compassion rounds (the "Cameron Duncan Compassion Rounds") will begin when the arrangements for the facilitator are finalised. Another project will explore ways to get the 'voice' of the patient and family into the contempory clinical record. The Incorporated Society behind CLANZ is being reactivated and that will give us access to further resource. A core group of iterested individuals have already signed up as members and we will call a special general meeting soon. An Interim Advisory Panel has been formed and work has begun to create a new Charitable Trust as the legal vehicle for the Centre for Compassion in Healthcare. If you would like to be part of this movement, please register your details on the membership form. Membership is free. We will not share your details with any other organisation. You can also go to the on-line discussion forum to take part in dialogue about issues of caring, compassion and professionalism (or any other subject you'd like to raise). For further information please contact Robin Youngson by email robin.youngson@clanz.org.nz 4   F U R T H E R   I N F O R M A T I O N Life and Death in the Emergency Department Life and Death in the Emergency Department Measuring the immeasurable Can compassion survive the 21st century? Compassion and Caring in Nursing - Summary and commentary of an editorial in the Journal of Professional Nursing Summary - The Doctor Who Cried: A Qualitative Study About the Doctor’s Vulnerability. Strategy for progress - building a community of practice An invitation to build a NZ conference on compassion in healthcare << BACK