BARB: [00:00:00] People start to think more about the finality of death, but I don't think everybody realizes how permanent. Death is and how quickly it sneaks up on us.

CATHERINE: Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one. I'm your host, Catherine Ashton, founder of Critical Info, and I'm helping to bring your stories of death back to life. Because while you may not be ready to die, at least you can be prepared.

Don't be caught dead. Acknowledges the lands of the Kulin Nations and recognizes their connection to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nation peoples around the globe.[00:01:00] 

Today I'm speaking with Barb Ferguson. Barb is an experienced end of life doula, funeral guide and celebrant with a deep passion for preparing individuals and families to navigate the journey of death and grief. Specializing in creative, meaningful ceremonies and rituals. She provides compassionate support both before and after death, including personalized after death care at home.

With extensive experience in the industry, Barb's vision is to empower people to live their lives more fully by embracing the natural cycles of life and death. She is also a dedicated advocate and guide for voluntary assisted dying. Helping individuals navigate these deeply personal decisions with dignity and care.

Barb also offers compassionate hands-on assistance with after death care [00:02:00] in the home, ensuring that families can care for their loved ones in a way that feels or authentic healing and aligned with their values. Her work emphasizes the importance of creating spaces for reflection, love, and community during life's final moments and beyond.

With extensive experience in the death care industry, Barb brings deep empathy, practical knowledge, and a steadfast commitment to her work. Her guiding philosophy is rooted in the belief that by embracing the natural cycles of life and death, people can live more fully and authentically. Thank you so much for being with us today, Barb.

BARB: Oh, thank you Catherine. I love having the opportunity to talk about my work and my passions. 

CATHERINE: Now tell me, Barb, when you talk about, I'll just bring it up here in your bio, it talks about. Hands on assistance with [00:03:00] after death care in the home. What does that entail? 

BARB: That's a great question. So lots of families are not ready to let go of their person.

So they may have had the opportunity to have their person at home for their end of life care, and that's a really. Busy, energetically draining time. And so they get to last breath and think, I'm not ready. I haven't done any of the work that I need to do because I've been doing physical work in caring for this person.

How can I keep them at home? So we have plenty of support available in cooling methods in, you know, recommending. Whereabouts in the home, we can place somebody to be cared for in the home. When I bring in the cooling blankets or cooling plates or just even techn ice or something like that, that will help keep the body cool for a day [00:04:00] or two whilst the family get on with the business of connecting to the fact that their person has died and what comes next, and we don't like to rush that space.

Into what day will we have the funeral? It's a place where it's time to take a pause to breathe and not rush off to a funeral home with their body. 

CATHERINE: And Barb, when you have helped families go through this process of caring for their loved one after they've died, what sort of things have you seen? Like has there been a shift in the family?

Like what happens during the, that day or so that they're allowed to do this? 

BARB: So I think it really is like letting out that long held breath that we take when we move into the active dying phase. People start to think more about the finality of death, but I don't think everybody realizes how permanent.

[00:05:00] Death is and how quickly it sneaks up on us. So there's oftentimes just before a death where families will be, may be a little fractious with one another, anxious to please everybody in the space. All of those things drop away once the death has happened. And then that gives space for somebody to sit with that person because there's no.

No urgency. No. This person has now died, so you are not taking up somebody else's space in there. You can quietly move in, sit with them. And come to terms with the loss. Some people might bring in something special and think, oh, dad is never without a hanky and he hasn't had a hanky all this time. So they'll tuck a hanky into his pajamas or something like that, that just connects them to that person.

So that's what I find the most of is that the anxiousness has gone [00:06:00] away. Families can react more kindly to one another. And they create the time to spend with their person, whether it's actually in the room with them or just in the house. It doesn't matter. You don't have to be sitting next to somebody to be connected to them because we're just all energy, Catherine 

CATHERINE: and.

Tell us about that energy, because you are there really throughout that process with a lot of your clients, aren't you? So you are there and you've just mentioned that friction that you can sometimes feel in the air. How do you sort of transition through that or see that transition through someone when they are actively dying to then the point of death to then after the death?

BARB: Really, it's all about just being there. Just being present. And a lot of the time I'm just in the background during that very, you know, those final, final stages if [00:07:00] I'm there at all. And I often say that if somebody rings me up and says, dad passed away two hours ago, I give myself a little pat on the back and say, well done.

That family was prepared properly. To navigate this part of the journey without me having to hold their hand. But as soon as they get to final breath, that's when they realize that they'd like my experience, my calmness and my energy to come back into that space and help them In those next few decisions.

Do we wanna go straight to a funeral home? Are we wanting to keep mom or dad at home? What do we wanna do next? And often I'll get that phone call and say, you know, my husband's just passed away. And I'll say, so who's with you now? Find out who's exactly in the home. If it's around a mealtime. Have you had [00:08:00] lunch yet?

Oh, you've got a whole lot of casserole have been brought in. Why don't you sit down with the family, have lunch, all breathe together. And what time would you like me to bring our transfer team with us in order to do, and would you like me to come along just before that and we can wrap dad together, those kinds of just gentle, oh well could you come now is often an answer just to guide.

Not to do it all because you want the family to do it. You wanna look out the window and see mom down the garden, picking dad's favorite flowers and bringing them and popping them on him, knowing that they will stay with him all the way through to cremation or burial. 

CATHERINE: And tell me, Barb, how on earth did you get started in this work?

BARB: It's an interesting story. So a friend of, uh, a friend of mine. Her brother was [00:09:00] killed in a train accident. He was visiting from New Zealand for her engagement party, and I felt drawn to just say, I'm available if you need anything. I'm available right now, and I have no experience in this lifetime. I was actually an accountant, so I'm ringing up and I'm saying.

I'm available. I'm in Melbourne. I'm going home for the day. Anything you need, ask. I got on the tram in St. Kilda Road, get a text back saying we need accommodation for 12 people tonight. As close to South Bank as you can get. I'm at South Bank on the tram, so I immediately get off the tram. Walked down to the Quest Apartments, which I knew were down there.

Spoke to the manager and arranged accommodation for this family. Their person was at the coroner for three and a half weeks, and in that time I built a relationship for them [00:10:00] with the coroner, with the Traffic Accident Commission, with V Line, with the New Zealand commissioner or ambassador. And or somebody else and a whole support crew, you know, of counselors and social workers to help this family through.

After a month of looking after this family, they said to me at the end, you have held us. You've kept us together. You've been like our sentinel during this whole time. We haven't been attacked by the media because you've managed to navigate for us on so many occasions. You should do this for a living.

And I looked at them and I said, who would pay somebody to look after them through this term, you know, through the most tragic time of their life. That was on the 5th of June, 2007, and it was 2015 that I came back into this work and became a paid [00:11:00] death doula 

CATHERINE: and that was like a, a period of quite a few years.

So tell me, what was the catalyst that actually drew you back in? 

BARB: My thought at the end of helping Nick and his family was because Nick was from New Zealand, and my thought at the time was, how many times do people come to Australia and something terrible happens, or whenever somebody travels, there's the opportunity for something bad to happen, and how do families cope, navigating different systems?

That was my thought at the time. And I parked that thought. But what actually brought me back into the death doula world was I actually became a birth doula. So again, my thought was, not every birth is gonna be wonderful. How do I prepare myself for something? You know, for a tragic end to a [00:12:00] beautiful time in somebody's life.

So it was then that I sought out some more training and discovered that birth doulas had companion death doula training, and went along and did training, and I fell in love with the work. Catherine, I fell in love with the fact that with very little effort. You could make a big difference in somebody's experience around death.

And from that moment on, I've been passionately supporting families through this time of life. 

CATHERINE: And I actually met you at one of those training sessions. Was it last year or even the year before 

BARB: You did. 

CATHERINE: I, um, was fortunate enough that the timing worked out right, that I got in contact with Denise Love.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and she was running a session here in Melbourne and I came along and, and met your lovely self. 

BARB: I know. I remember that day and you also met [00:13:00] another 18 women who were training on that day to be similar to work as death doula. But we don't always work the same. Everybody works. We'll find a different path within the death doula work.

So 18 women have taken on different branches of the work and it's wonderful, wonderful to see. 

CATHERINE: And can you tell me a little bit about that? When you say that you've, they've taken different branches, what does that sort of look like? How, how is that possible? 

BARB: So, I talk about, I can meet somebody at the very beginning of their journey.

So I might do what I call a, a diagnosis download At that time it might become very important for that person to create an advanced care directive, which will guide family and medical professionals through. Their diagnosis. That's an area where there's some, some of the girls that have been doing the training are [00:14:00] exceptional in that space and create wonderful documents.

So that's a big space for people who like technology and like developing all of those things. So. That's one arm of it. Other people are really good at the funeral planning side of it for after, for home funerals, all of those things. So there's lots of spaces. Some people just like popping into volunteer roles in nursing homes, aged care, or somewhere like that.

So there's lots of spaces that people just go, this is where I really shine and I'd like to focus on this area. 

CATHERINE: And that just makes me think that there's also a doula down here that specializes on the Mornington Peninsula that specializes in running the death cafes and an opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. So I can, I can certainly see why there's different areas where you feel most comfortable with your [00:15:00] skillset.

BARB: Absolutely. And if you wanna stay in that space, that's fine, but I think as your confidence grows, you become, you know, more comfortable with a phone call, a spontaneous phone call from somebody asking, you know, right at the last minute, oh, we are right at the pointy end and we should have engaged a doula earlier, and we're stuck now.

Happy to, to field those phone calls and find somebody who's closer to them that can whiz around if necessary, and just be that calm space that it's like being the eye of the storm. Know that quiet in the middle and knowing when to say, have you thought about this? Rather than you should. I've taken the word should out of my dictionary with my doula work.

Because that's the first thing that families hear when they get a diagnosis is you [00:16:00] should, you have, you know, instead of, have you thought about it's, you should try the Vietnamese Coffee Grinds diet, or you know, something like that. Something that they've heard extraordinary things about. Think that everybody should be trying.

So I try to be a person who's calm and who listens and helps sift out all of those noises that come in when you get a diagnosis. 

CATHERINE: And when you just mentioned then that there might be a phone call from a family who say to you, oh, look, we should have engaged a doula earlier. What are they finding is the challenge and what's been the thing that's made them pick up the phone to ring you?

BARB: What it normally comes across as Catherine is that that suddenly all of these changes are happening rapidly, and whilst they're. Medical professional was expecting [00:17:00] it. They weren't. So there's a a series of rapid changes. Rapid changes in breathing, diet output, all of those things, which. I don't have any knowledge of because I'm not medical, but I do know that they're all normal signs of an active dying period.

And if you can just have that conversation with a person that says, well, that is normal, and they are being heard, they've dialed a number, somebody was able to hear them and offer the suggestion of either, would you like me to pop around? Would you like to, you know, have you thought about trying something like this?

You know, elevating the legs, you know, simple little suggestions to create comfort for their person, because up until now they've been so focused on treatment that comfort often escapes. They're direct thinking. They're not thinking about comfort. They're thinking about [00:18:00] treatment. Is it time for more pain relief?

Is it time for this? Is it time for that? When an actual fact, it's let's make mom super comfortable here and let's not turn her every two hours because the results gonna be the same and every two hours, she's just gotten into this space of being restful. And at peace and somebody comes in and rolls her around.

So giving people permission to think about what their person needs as opposed to what would be a routine for end of life care for a medical professional. 

CATHERINE: It's interesting that you say that because there's one family member that we had who had a diagnosis of a life limiting illness. It was quite a, a quick period of time from diagnosis to when they died, and I remember those last few days in palliative care when [00:19:00] we were there.

And things can change very quickly and they. Can become quite scary when you're listening to the breathing change and it's starting to rattle. And, and I think that, you know, if someone hasn't experienced that, that is a really kind of scary process to, to, to witness. 

BARB: Mm-hmm. And if, if you happen to be either at home or in palliative care, often you haven't got access to somebody who will just gently explain it.

But that is. Quite distressing for you to listen to, but it's not doing it, you know, it's just a collection of bit of phlegm that, and it's, it's noisy and it's distressing to listen to, but your person's fine. They're, you know, it's not part of what's going to ultimately cause their death. It's just a symptom leading up to death, and it doesn't happen to everybody.

CATHERINE: And that's [00:20:00] interesting, isn't it? Is because we don't get to experience different deaths. But you are in a very unique position that you do get to be the witness to a lot of deaths. Is there any consistency, like you mentioned before about different energies? Like tell us a little bit about that being there to witness that.

BARB: So I would really like to talk about the energy around death as well, Catherine, and a lot of people talk about the ancestors. And it doesn't happen with every person, but sometimes you walk into a room, and I experienced it one time where I walked into a room and the family had been nursing for a week.

Mum increasingly withdrawing, but then she became very vocal and they didn't understand what that was. I came in and the energy in the room was just crowded. And I went out and I spoke to the family and I said, well, she sure has got a lot of ancestors and they're all in there [00:21:00] now cheering her on. And they go, what do you mean?

I said, well, she's talking, you know, she's talking to their energy. Obviously they're not there in person, but their energy has arrived to escort her to take her through the transition. And she's communicating with them. You can hear her talking gently to some cranky with others. And it seemed to me like she was bargaining.

So they said, oh, we are really tired. Would you mind staying the night? And this went on for about three or four more hours where this conversation was going on and on and on, and then she stopped 

CATHERINE: and you could hear the conversation. 

BARB: I could hear her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was, she was talking to someone and it was not the same person.

There were many little bits of conversation, so I left her to it because that's, you know, that's her journey. It's got nothing to do with me. I was 12 or 15 feet [00:22:00] away in the old measure and could hear her, checked in on her every hour to make sure that she was okay, and around midnight, one o'clock in the morning, she just stopped.

Nothing. And I thought, oh, she's gone. Went back into check. No. Nope. She just, and you could actually see where she snuggled down into the bed. The covers had come up. I didn't put the covers up. She must have put the covers up to right under her chin, and I continued to check on her. She was breathing steadily all night.

A little bit more shallow, not noisy. And then I went to sleep. And was woken and I went in at 5 45. I went to sleep after that 5 55, there is an absolute chorus of birds singing and squaking outside her bedroom window. And I went in and she'd gone. She'd just quietly [00:23:00] slipped away after, in my mind looked my way of thinking.

Making sure that she was heading in the right direction with the ancestors and that she was absolutely ready to go. 

CATHERINE: Barb, did you hear any like the birds at any other point in time in the days after that or, 

BARB: oh yes. So we, we had a wonderful at home ceremony for her before we took her to the crematorium and the birds came back that day.

So you just know. You just know. So we, we'd actually took her out to the, her grandsons carried her out to the hearse, and there were birds out in front of the hearse as well when we left. And then when we got to Lily Dale, there were more birds at Lily Dale. And often I'm surrounded by birds that are death and not always the same.

It's not always ravens, it's not always mag pies, you know, sometimes it's more [00:24:00] colorful parrots or something like that. But yeah, often. 

CATHERINE: It's so fascinating because it seems to be quite a common theme when people do slow down and they are actually more observant, which is something that you kind of go into when you are actually watching someone slowly die, is that you do become more apparent and more aware of those things.

1. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's fascinating. And we've touched a little bit about what you've seen, the client experience, or in this case, the, the person who was dying. Because it sounds like a lot of the time the family calls you into support. Who is your client in, in these scenarios, Barb? Oh, 

BARB: that's really, it's.

Always different and always the family think that they're bringing you in to be with the dying person. But one person was absolutely clear with me when I said, what do you think a death [00:25:00] doula will do? And he said, oh, you'll be there for my family after I die. And. So I knew that he had no real feelings one way or the other, but what he was doing as the man of the family was making sure that his family would be okay after he died.

So I thought, oh yeah, okay. That I understand that. We were just finishing our conversation and I was drawn to say. So there's two things I'm curious about. We are meeting today in hospital. Are we meeting in hospital because that's where you are most comfortable and feel that you would like to die or would you like to die at home?

And he immediately said, oh, I'd like to die at home. And my thought process is, well, what are you doing here? My mouth fortunately says, well, how do you think? You're gonna get to home. At what point do you think the doctor's just gonna say to you, [00:26:00] you can now go home and die. Or, in my experience, it's important for you to let the medical professionals know that that's what you are thinking.

Ah, and his wife was actually a few shades paler by this point, and she was already thinking about how am I gonna do this at home? So I turned to her and I said, how do you feel about. Him coming home and she said, oh, oh. And I said, have you contacted Palliative Care to see what kind of support you could get it in the home?

Oh, no. I didn't know I could do that. Okay. Well that's your, that's your second step. Your first step is to talk to the hospital and to your medical professionals. Second is to engage palliative care to support you at home. And from our earlier conversations, you have five children. Are they located close to you?

Are they capable of sharing the care with you and do you think [00:27:00] they'll be comfortable? And she immediately thought of it and she said, well, actually they're at home doing it all now anyway. Like food, et cetera, et cetera, is all being on a roster. Yeah, we can do this. He can come home. So my next question was, I said, well, okay, let's jump to what happens after you die.

Do you wanna be buried or cremated? And he immediately said, buried. And she again, paled off and she said, oh, I want to be cremated. I don't wanna be. And I said, well, that's okay. We can accommodate both these wishes. If he would like to be buried, that's fine. And later on, a long time down the track, we can cremate you and pop your ashes in the same grade.

Oh, okay. Oh, so we don't have to have the same treatment at the end of of life. I said, no, not at all. [00:28:00] So after a day or so of. Uh, the meetings with the hospital, yes, he can go home. He went home and she sends me a picture of him being wheeled out of the ambulance and she said, we did it. And she was so pleased that they'd done it, and she said, do you wanna come and see what it looks like now?

But, so I went to their home and he had the most magnificent view. They lived up in the hills. He was sat by a, a window or in a, in a bed by a window, and he could see the home. He'd spent 41 years building with her, the gardens, everything, and he was expected to live a little longer. But the following day there was a whole lot of people in the house, new support people and things like that, and they were bringing in a proper hospital bed for him.

And as the hospital bed. Came in one door, he went out the other [00:29:00] in my, I said, he must have seen that contraption coming and thought, not for me. I'm outta here. And took his last breath and nobody was watching. They were all busy doing something and it was, to them, it was, I think, a lovely relief that they didn't actually have to sit and watch him take his last breath because he was talking moments before.

CATHERINE: And Barb, is that common Because they, you know, you hear the stories about that some people wait until people have left the room when they're having a vigil and, and spending time with their loved one when they know that they're going to die. But it's in that moment where their backs are turned, they've left the room, you know, they've gone home from the hospital for the time being.

How common is that? 

BARB: Oh, so very common. Very, very common. My own brother-in-law did it. My own brother-in-law had. Several family members in vigil from Wednesday. Until Saturday morning, [00:30:00] sleeping on the floor and around the room, outside the room. It was a beautiful country hospital so you could, you could bend or you could create your own.

What worked for yourself, uh, happened there. And at 6:00 AM in the morning, family who weren't there rang in to check and see how things were going, and my sister left the room and so did he. And I'm just think, I think that's beautiful. I think you know that it, it gives you a sense of, well, a sense of completion without the pain of actually seeing that last breath, that last moment, and you know that you've been with them in spirit.

You are, even though you're physically not holding onto their hand, you are there with them, but you don't have to actually witness that last breath. 

CATHERINE: Because it is something that we all do by ourselves, isn't it? 

BARB: And like I applaud these programs, Catherine, that talk [00:31:00] about nobody dies alone, but I don't know that enough attention is paid to.

Does that person want to die alone? Do they? You know, not necessarily in their own home, but sometimes people just want that privacy. They've been private people all their lives, and to have somebody in and checking on them every two hours and then somebody, a stranger who feels that, you know, it's important that nobody dies alone.

You think actually it is important for people to die alone. That, you know, they, that's their journey. That's how they wanna be. They don't wanna be. The middle, the center of attention. They just, they wanna quietly leave the building. In my, that's how I think of it. They've, they've left the building, but in their own way, 

CATHERINE: Barb, do you get people asking for your support when an unexpected death has happened?

BARB: So I am [00:32:00] blessed to have a role, a freelance role, with one of the funeral. The independent funeral director here in Melbourne and he has what he calls Barb specials and, and they are people who've experienced a sudden traumatic loss and they need doering and he knows that, and that's why he's got me on the speed dial for these families.

And I referred earlier to my experience with the coroner's department. But the coroner's office is extraordinarily busy at the moment, Catherine and, and they have a huge team of support people around them, and everybody that I've spoken to is more than impressed by the help and support they get from the coroner's department.

90% of the time, I'm the 10%. So I'm the person that's looking after the 10 percenters and they're the people whose person will be starting with the coroner for a long time. [00:33:00] Not everybody gets a, a straight in and out, and sometimes these families are gripped by, you know, the deaths that we don't wanna talk about a sudden baby death because a sudden baby death will 10 times out of 10 end up at the coroner's office, a homicide, a sudden road accident.

They're the types of cases that stay at the coroners for a while. So I'm fortunate to be in a position to be connected with these families through this freelance work that I do with the funeral director, and you can spend time gently preparing them for their person to come back to them. I'll give you one recent example so we have a sudden death in the home.

That person obviously goes to the coroner's office now. Because we don't think about death a lot. [00:34:00] We think that is the end of our relationship with that person. We think that the funeral director will now pick up our person and then there'll be a burial. But we have the facilities available now to bring you into the funeral home.

Most funeral homes have disability and they'll have a small visual space, and you can be with your person again there. So sometimes I've had the opportunity of reuniting families who thought that when their baby was taken by the coroner, and so when you have a reportable death like that, you have the ambulance called first.

I've only recently learned the ambulance and fire brigade often attend simultaneously in case there's a need for CPR. Then when they discover that the person has died, the police are involved, and then there'll be somebody who will [00:35:00] transfer to the coroner. So, so many of these events happen in the middle of the night.

So you've gone to sleep thinking that in the morning you would wake up and your family would have breakfast together, but instead you've woken up and one family member has gone, has been whisked away. You don't even know where the coroner's office is. You've been given a phone number, but do you know when you can ring that number?

You know, all of those things are now questions and you've got more questions than answers. If you are lucky enough to be connected with somebody like myself at that time, I can talk you through what's happening right now at the coroner's office for you. We can link into their portals. We can find out whether there's any scheduled investigations, whether they will just be doing a routine scan type thing and some blood tests and, [00:36:00] and release your person quickly, or if your person is scheduled for further investigations.

In that time, we can then also be mentally preparing you for the opportunity to perhaps. See your person again before burial. So there's an area that I love working in this area because it makes a difference to families. It makes a difference in our workplace because traumatized families are our angry families, Catherine and, and you're working with people who are ringing up angry all the time.

You said such and such, you said. I expect this and I'm not getting this. All of those angry things have melted away because they have knowledge. They have enough knowledge to get them from one day to the next, and sometimes, that's all I promise Today. This is how much we know. I'll [00:37:00] call again in the morning and see how we get how things are going, and families are actually okay with that.

They know that they don't have to think about that again for the rest of the day because they know where we're up to. So for me, that's a really special place to work with and I find that I'm meeting one to two families a week who are experiencing coronial care. 

CATHERINE: It's quite a lot, isn't it? 

BARB: Well, the number at the moment exceeds 7,000 for 2025, and we're not into November yet, so I believe there's 12 coroners.

So you can imagine their workload and they've got a, a magnificent team of people behind them, but they can't do for a family what I can, because I create the time. They can't create the time they're. Working. The [00:38:00] coroner's office works 24 7. 

CATHERINE: And tell me, Barb, a little bit about your work with voluntary assisted dying.

How, how did you transition into to that work? How did that come about? 

BARB: So I met with a beautiful young woman early 2019. This was before voluntary assisted dying. So I think I was exposed to a voluntary sister dying from day one. On day one, I had a phone call from her saying, I'd like to speak to you. My partner will be out for a little while.

Can you come at this time instinctively, I knew this is what the conversation's gonna be like. Interestingly enough, I had three calls on that day, Catherine. Three calls on the very first day that voluntary assist. So it cemented in my mind right from the word go that this is something we've been waiting for as a country or as a state in our case, just to have it state [00:39:00] by state.

So I went along with my client to all her meetings. She was granted her access to the medication and as you know, once you're granted access, you still don't have to take it on a prescribed day. It is your medication to take when you see fit and, and it becomes necessary. In that time, she also had a little exposure to different things.

She had been very much focusing on her. Wellness and, and trying many different things. And in that time, I actually had a, a trip to Cairns and I sent her lots of photos with me, waning around in Cairns, and she said, I've never been to Cairns. I wanna go to Cairns. Can I go to Cairns? And I said, of course you can.

It'd all be different than organizing for somebody else. But she still had most of [00:40:00] her mobility and she went to Cairns. After she came home from Cairns, 'cause she sent me lots of pictures of her at the beach, her under the full moon, at the beach at Cairns. She came home and she said, I'd like to travel some more.

And with her granting of the medication, the access to the medication and having it, suddenly she had a new outlook on life. And could see choices in front of her. She could see the opportunity. Well, I might just try that and know that I've got the medication. It's now six years and she's still living her best life.

Traveling up and down the coast of Queensland in a caravan they bought and then they're bought a home. So for me, I see voluntary assisted dying, not as access to actually dying. But I see it as the opportunity to have a [00:41:00] choice to either run the race and go without using the medication. So I've looked after 15 families now and eight of them have accessed the medication vacation.

One is going to live forever, I believe, and the other six died through like. The natural course of their illness, that everyone had a choice. 

CATHERINE: And what do you do for yourself to make sure that you put your wellbeing first? Because it's that classic thing of the fact that you are being the safety net for everyone else.

So how, how do you make sure that you are Okay? 

BARB: Many years ago, I. Practice meditation. And from that I grew a practice, not of meditation. I don't, I [00:42:00] don't meditate all the time, but I spend a lot of time with mindfulness and being aware of what's building up and what I can do to say, oh, I need to step back.

And so that's it. It's mindfulness for me. It's not about. Saunas or massages or anything like that. It's more about living in the moment and at the moment, you can see behind me, you know, a lovely roof line in front of me. I'm at a friend's home, four acres in Dalesford. I'm up on the second story and I'm looking out over the Springfield Dam.

That's what keeps me going. The fact is, you know that I, I enjoy the outdoors, I enjoy nature, and I enjoy mindfully being in that space. And apart from that, I also have four beautiful grandchildren who really ground me and lift [00:43:00] me. If I was ever feeling really heavy, one of them would do something that would lift you.

So family's pretty important as well. 

CATHERINE: You've talked a little bit about, you know, the medical profession and the fact that the resources are stretched there, the coroner's caught, the resources are stretched there. What role do you see in doulas playing to fill those gaps? You've talked a little bit about it, but moving forward and looking forward, where are we now and where is the potential?

BARB: So. In a nutshell, Catherine, I don't do any, I don't have a webpage. I don't do any advertising yet. I'm able to be fully engaged with client work, and the reason is because the system is stretched and I have a, a lovely referral base of, you know, clients who've experienced doula care before other doulas who don't have, [00:44:00] you know, the time to put into new clients all refer to me.

So what I'd like to say at the coroner's office is a family comes in and they can see the need. They can see that there's going to be a gap here because they don't have the capacity. And instead of trying to fill the gap themselves and knowing that they don't have the capacity, pick up the phone or say to them, have you thought about engaging a doula?

I think the biggest. Hurdle that we have is that doulas are a private practice, so you have to come up with money to pay doulas. And we live in a system where most of our medical things, you know, we have bulk billing, we have all sorts of things are government provided. So, you know, there, there is a recognition that people have to pay for our pr, our services as a private [00:45:00] practice.

And for some people that's a bit of a hurdle. During our training with Denise, love the thing that we, as we are trained, we are trained in the way that it's important for us to still be able to give, to do some pro bono work. And I know that at times, I, I, I don't do it often, but there are times when I see something in my peripheral world that says, I really feel like you need a, the assistance of a doula.

And people are very quick to engage a birth doula because they know there's a gap in the medical system that a birth doula works well with, but they're not as ready to see. A death doller could actually benefit them in this, but everybody who experiences the care of a death doula will say, I wished I'd known about you earlier.

Or in one case, I was working with an [00:46:00] estranged family, and the estranged wife said to me, I don't know how much he's paying you, but you're worth double. It's proof in the, in the, in the pudding. There's so many families out there who've had the experience, and it's not as expensive as people feel it, you know, it's a, a reasonable rate of, of pay for a reasonable service that's provided.

CATHERINE: What's interesting is that it seems to be that the doula is one of the very few continuity of care from even before diagnosis. You know, or even in an unexpected death, like you have a role to play and that role can be when someone's actually, you know, diagnosed with a life limiting illness right through to.

Even after they're dead buried, cremated, all of those things have happened. You can still play a [00:47:00] role. So for me, looking in at a system that is very siloed and, and as you said is generally understaffed as well, is that each, each part of the puzzle tries to do their bit. But a doula seems to be one of the very few things that is the continuity of care all the way through.

BARB: Would that be fair? Absolutely. And as in my bio when you read it, sometimes I'm maybe been the funeral celebrant. So, you know, you've had experience of that person and their interactions with family sometimes over many, many months. And in fact, one person I'm working with at the moment, I first, they first engaged with me casually six years ago, and they're in palliative care right now.

So. Over the course of six years, you've, your advice has followed them on the way or your guidance. It's not always advice. It's guidance. 

CATHERINE: And what would you like to [00:48:00] see, you know, the role of doulas be or become? You've touched on obviously the medical profession. Like should people be reaching out to a doula and connecting before they even need your services?

Should they be asking questions before they need someone? 

BARB: I think there should be more awareness of what a doula can do and, and we are actually in the middle of a wave of engagement by community and there's a lot more people thinking about community healthcare and I think a lot of the time we keep seeing the big picture.

When in actual fact, if you can work in small communities, like I know you're down the the peninsula and they've now got the southeast hub of doulas, that is creating a little momentum there with some open days and with some death cafes and things like that. So people at least know that there are people in their community and it's very [00:49:00] much like being the village elder Catherine, if you can find somebody that.

That, that, that, you know, just knows stuff. It, it doesn't, I don't have to be the person that does everything. And that's the thing I love. It's it being in the industry now for as long as I have. I don't have to do everything. I can say, you know, we've got some people down the peninsula, they've got a great little hub.

Why don't you think about them? Central Victoria's got another very active hub up around Heathkit Castle main area. That's where, that's what I do is, uh, point them towards these people or find somebody in that group that I've worked with that I'm confident and will refer them to them and say, you know, and, and oftentimes I might refer them to somebody and that somebody will come back to me and say, what do you think about this bar?

I think that's great. You know, I hadn't, I wouldn't have thought of that because I'm not local to [00:50:00] your area. That's great that you've connected with 'em, with that service. So that's, that's something that's happening now is that there is a bit of a swell of groups of doulas and they come from all different sorts of backgrounds and trainings and, and, you know, creating a wonderful tapestry of support for people experiencing life limiting, diagnose, or sudden, sudden death, traumatic death, or even aged care.

CATHERINE: I can't thank you enough for your time today. It's been wonderful to finally chat with you. 

BARB: Thanks, Catherine. I've had the best morning as always. Thank you. 

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