St John of God Murdoch Community Hospice provides specialist palliative care for patients, families and loved ones facing a life-ending illness.
Palliative care focuses on enhancing quality of life and encompasses all aspects of a person’s care needs including the physical, social, spiritual, psychological and emotional factors. It aims to provide relief from pain and other symptoms. It also offers a support system to help carers cope during their loved one’s illness and into bereavement.
Our palliative care philosophy is to give people with life limiting illnesses a reason to hope and a feeling of greater self-confidence and dignity.
Our palliative care service includes:
- a 20 bed purpose-built specialist inpatient unit
- palliative care consultancy service for inpatients at St John of God Murdoch Hospital
- Footprints Day Centre – practical and emotional support through creative and social activities and complementary therapies for people living with life limiting illnesses and their carers
- an outpatient clinic run by a palliative medicine specialist
- grief and bereavement counselling and support for families and carers after the death of a loved one.
History of St John of God Murdoch Hospice
In the late 1990s, St John of God Health Care recognised a critical need for more palliative care beds south of the river in Perth.
Responding to this need, the St John of God Murdoch Community Hospice opened its doors in 1998, offering a 20-bed facility dedicated to providing comprehensive, compassionate, end of life care for people with a life-limiting illness, while also supporting carers and loved ones.
In 2006, it joined the St John of God Health Care group, ensuring a seamless integration of resources and expertise.
Over 25 years later in 2021, a $5 million refurbishment of the hospice was completed, entirely funded by generous Gifts in Wills from grateful patients. The refurbishment has ensured that the hospice can continue to provide state-of-the-art care in a comfortable, supportive environment for many years to come.
Today, St John of God Murdoch Community Hospice is a beacon of hope, providing holistic, compassionate care not only to patients but to their loved ones as well. As a leading provider of palliative care in Perth’s southern suburbs, the hospice remains committed to its mission of serving the community with dignity and respect.