Palliative Care Connect

To talk to a Palliative Care Navigator, call 1800 725 548 (PALLI8), available Monday to Friday from 8.30 am to 4.00 pm or email health.pcnavigation@sa.gov.au. Voicemail will be available after hours for a call back the following business day.

Visit the Palliative Care Connect website for more information.

Palliative Care Connect provides information and links to palliative care and bereavement supports in South Australia.

An information line is available for people with life-limiting illnesses and their family members, friends, and carers, as well as healthcare professionals.

Palliative Care Navigators, available through the information line, provide information, service linkages, and empower individuals to make choices aligned with their culture and preferences.

Palliative Care Navigators also support general practitioners and other healthcare professions, including those who work in palliative care units, acute care and aged care services to organise and link people to appropriate palliative care, supports or services.

The Palliative Care Connect website, developed in partnership with Flinders University, features key information about palliative care and bereavement. It also has a self-assessment tool to help people identify the support and resources they need.

A service directory is available to make it easier for South Australians to find relevant palliative care, bereavement and related community services near them.

Specialist volunteer coordination, as well as Aboriginal and regional palliative care navigation services, and bereavement navigation services will become available in February and March 2024.

Palliative Care Connect is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care through the South Australia Palliative Care Navigation Pilot program.

What is palliative care?

Put simply, palliative care helps people of all ages with a life-limiting illness, live their life as fully and as comfortably as possible.

Palliative care identifies and treats symptoms which may be physical, emotional, spiritual or social.

Palliative care can be accessed from the time of diagnosis. Accessing palliative care early gives people the ability to control their symptoms more effectively, build a therapeutic relationship with their healthcare team, and in some cases, has been proven to prolong life.

Palliative care is a family-centred model of care, meaning that family, friends and carers can also receive practical and emotional support in their caring role and in grief and bereavement.

What is bereavement support?

Bereavement support is available for those experiencing grief and sorrow due to the death of a loved one.

Grief can also start before someone has died and we can start grieving when a loved one is first diagnosed with a life-limiting illness.

There are various types of bereavement supports available and the type of support that is most helpful can vary based on individual preferences, needs, and circumstances. This can include counselling, support groups, online resources, forums and more.  

Everyone deals with grief differently and according to their own time schedule.