Responding proactively to the Government’s affirmation last October of its commitment to work with palliative care providers to build their capabilities, Agape Methodist Hospice despatched five staff members to a highly rated “go
to” workshop on the subject “Grief and Bereavement Care” at Hospis Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur on 14 and 15 December.
At the workshop, AMH staff received training conducted by two experts Professor Amy Chow from Hong Kong and Dr Gilbert Fan from Singapore. Prof Chow is with the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong, while Dr Fan is the Deputy Chair for Patient Support and Head of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology, National Cancer Centre Singapore. Prof Chow’s extensive experience in palliative care, grief
and bereavement together with Dr Fan’s expertise in experiential counselling and grief work made the workshop a “must attend” event for palliative care personnel.
The workshop, which attracted maximum attendance with participants hailing from around Asia, focused on anticipatory grief, which is the grief reaction felt by the patient and his family members as they face the eventual death of the former.
The AMH trainees came to understand that grieving is a natural process, and that it takes place not only after a patient dies but also in the advent of death. They were taught that it is important not to pathologise patients, given that their seemingly abnormal behaviour – at a time when they are dying – can be a way for them to act out their pain. The team observed a demonstration of several therapeutic approaches such as Two-Chair Counselling Therapy, Mindfulness Therapy and ADAPTS Therapy, etc. They also went through very realistic, experiential learning in these
techniques, practising the therapies on themselves before they applied the techniques to patients.
Moira Tan, Nurse Manager of AMH, felt that the workshop had increased her knowledge of counselling and broadened her appreciation of the subject. She had previously been apprehensive about expressing her own sadness when she faced head-on the overflowing grief of bereaved family members. She wasn’t sure whether it was alright to cry with them. This workshop helped her realise that “if I cried with them, they will know that actually someone does feel for them”.
Our medical social worker, Edlin Hu, agreed that the workshop had helped her to resolve concerns about whether it is proper to shed tears with the family. Another workshop trainee, Staff Nurse Amanda Ong, said that the training had “opened up a whole new world of understanding grief”. For the team as a whole, the training has provided a clear framework for grief assessment and intervention.
The team feels that they are now better able to understand the grieving process of patients and their caregivers, and are comfortable too in grieving with them. They can also more capably assess whether the grieving has turned from what is a normal expression of loss into depression. They are more able too at counselling patients. They have also learnt to face their own anxieties about death so that these do not get in the way when they relate to their patients.
Aside from sending staff to attend workshops to enhance their capabilities, AMH hopes to expand its care team by two more nurses and a doctor. The hospice plans to enlarge the working space to accommodate the staff additions. These measures will boost AMH’s capacity. At present, the hospice has a complement of one resident doctor, three nurses and one medical social worker and one administrator. The team attends to around 200 patients annually.