Our palliative care system may be waning as demand grows, prompting a push for action. 

We've fallen from third in the world in palliative care access ten years ago, to 12th place.  

An article in the New Zealand Medical Journal finds we have less than a third of the recommended number of specialists per capita, and many are nearing retirement.  

Author Dr Catherine D’Souza told Mike Hosking that we lack the funding to train more specialists, despite having ample opportunity and space to do so. 

She says that the number of people dying is going to double in the next thirty years, and if we don’t take action quickly, already struggling health services are going to struggle even more and fall apart. 

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