This page is part of a whole section on palliative care [1].
Palliative care for children and young people focuses on comfort and quality of life for the child and support for the whole family/whānau.
The aim of palliative care is to provide hope and achieve the best quality of life for your child and family/whānau during stressful times.
Palliative care can be provided to children with serious illness, of all ages, from premature babies to older teens. Palliative care can also be provided to families before their baby is born when the baby has been diagnosed with a serious illness.
The goal of those working with you, your child and whānau is to:
No. Sometimes it is difficult to know what the outcome of a serious illness might be. Children and parents may find themselves in the difficult position of having to decide whether or not to pursue treatments that offer a small chance of a cure. It is possible to go ahead with such treatments and still receive palliative care. In this way, whānau can 'hope for the best but prepare for everything else'.
The content on this page has been developed and approved by the New Zealand Paediatric Palliative Care Clinical Network, Paediatric Society of New Zealand.
This page last reviewed 22 May 2020.
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Links
[1] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/tags/palliative-care
[2] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/node/1520?language=mi
[3] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/node/2492?language=mi
[4] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/node/2818?language=mi
[5] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/node/2819?language=mi
[6] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/node/2820?language=mi
[7] https://www.rainbowplace.co.nz/service/referrals
[8] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/node/2351?language=mi
[9] https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/contact?from=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kidshealth.org.nz%2Fprint%2F370%3Flanguage%3Dmi