Living, Loving, Dying: Health Promoting Palliative Care and the place for compassion in Rural Tasmania

This paper presents findings from recent participatory, qualitative research which illuminates a rural context for Health Promoting Palliative Care from the perspectives of bereaved carers from a small community in rural Australia. Eligible participants had cared for someone until their death within a three-year period prior. Results indicate that rural residents face particular challenges at the end of life, but also have positive experiences which include expert and flexible formal and informal palliative care, and the space for personalised expressions of compassion, bereavement and grief. This research adds new insights to understandings of rural compassion as a complex intersection of supererogation, innovation and place-based care.