I have seen first-hand how life limiting illnesses including cancer affects individuals and their families. In this difficult journey, Marie Curie palliative care services have been a haven, offering rapid response services for end of life care in Dumfries and Galloway. Nurses and health care support workers from Marie curie extend the comfort of home to those in their final days, ensuring dignity, privacy and timely care that hospitals, often overcrowded, cannot always provide. 

Unfortunately, a measure has been put in place to cease these critical services as we know them, now instead of a home visit between 9pm and 7am there will be a phone line you can call between 6pm and midnight but this will no longer provide the hands on service given   ,  a decision that threatens to rob patients of their deserved serenity and their families of precious final moments at home. In addition to this personal cost, analyses show that home palliative care considerably reduces hospital admissions thus alleviating the strain on our healthcare system.

Reversing this decision is more than a nod to dignity and a win for our healthcare system. It is a message to each family that we value their journey; to each patient that we cherish their final wishes. We cannot allow suffering where it can be avoided. We cannot let swift care become a luxury of the past.

This is a call to the decision-makers of Marie Curie in Dumfries and Galloway. We ask you to reconsider, to reverse the cutbacks of palliative care services. Let's ensure that patients continue to receive the dignified, comforting care they deserve in their hours of need. Please sign this petition.