{"id":664848,"date":"2026-05-11T23:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664848\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:38:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:38:24","slug":"volunteer-gives-central-queensland-hospice-residents-free-haircuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664848\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteer gives central Queensland hospice residents free haircuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hairdresser Kelly Wingard knows all too well the difference a fresh cut and a friendly chat can make during someone’s final days.<\/p>\n

The Rockhampton business owner is one of many volunteers helping to bring comfort to terminally ill patients and their families staying at the Fitzroy Community Hospice.<\/p>\n

“We all know if our hair’s not right, sometimes we don’t even want to go out,” Ms Wingard said.<\/p>\n

“[And] with different operations and things, there is hair loss.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Kelly Wingard says she became a hairdresser because she loves building relationships with people. (ABC Capricornia: Claudia Sullivan)<\/p>\n

“So blending it all in together, making it look more so-called normal \u2026 hopefully it makes them feel a little bit better [about] themselves.”<\/p>\n

The central Queensland-based not-for-profit opened in 2024 after many locals like Ms Wingard saw a need for the space.<\/p>\n

“I lost my dad and this facility wasn’t available for him,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Fiztroy Community Hospice can facilitate up to 12 terminally ill patients at a time. (ABC Capricornia: Claudia Sullivan)<\/p>\n

She said a dedicated space would have made all the difference in what she described as a family’s “darkest, most vulnerable moment”.<\/p>\n

“It was a cold, sterile, palliative room,” Ms Wingard said.<\/p>\n

“We were sleeping on towels and pillows on the floor. [But] we weren’t going to leave him.”<\/p>\n

Calls for people to plan end-of-life care<\/p>\n

Despite the addition of the facility to the central Queensland region, the hospice’s clinical services manager, Megan Anderson, said there were still gaps in the country’s advanced healthcare system.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

People are being encouraged to plan their end-of-life care. (ABC Capricornia: Claudia Sullivan)<\/p>\n

A 2025 survey by Advance Care Planning Australia found just one in three Australians had begun planning how they wished to receive end-of-life care.<\/p>\n

Ms Anderson said, while it could be very difficult, it was an important conversation to have.<\/p>\n

“Practitioners \u2026 know [your] illness better than most of us. But they don’t know what you want and the importance of your values, wishes, and goals,” she said.<\/p>\n

“If you don’t express those, then no one’s going to know.”<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Megan Anderson (left) and her colleagues have been helping locals with advanced healthcare planning. (ABC Capricornia: Claudia Sullivan)<\/p>\n

The theme for this year’s National Palliative Care Week is Big questions, real answers.<\/p>\n

Palliative Care Queensland chief executive Louise O’Neill said people would likely have questions after receiving unexpected health news.<\/p>\n

“People ask, ‘Is it going to be painful? Who’s going to look after my dog? What do I want to be remembered for? Do I need to have treatment to the end?'” Ms O’Neill said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Louise O’Neill says about 450 Australians die every day from a life-limiting illness. (Supplied: Palliative Care Queensland)<\/p>\n

“Around 70 people a day in Queensland die [from] an expected death that they could have planned for.<\/p>\n

“If we plan \u2026 we can help those that we leave behind make decisions much more simply and easily.”<\/p>\n

Appeals to keep improving care<\/p>\n

Ms O’Neill said Australia’s palliative care services fared well when compared to other countries.<\/p>\n

“The hospital system is really under pressure everywhere. Particularly in regional areas [where] we know \u2026 it’s hard to retain staff,” she said.<\/p>\n

“If you’re in somewhere like Biloela, you won’t have any specialist palliative care in town.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You’re expected to either come into Rockhampton or Gladstone for that care.”<\/p>\n

With Queensland’s current Palliative and End-Of-Life Care Strategy set to expire on June 30, Palliative Care Queensland has asked the state government to renew or extend the current agreed strategy to ensure the system does not degrade.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls said that while the strategy would expire soon, it would not change the level of care provided to Queenslanders, as initiatives from the strategy had been fully embedded within the health system.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Ms Wingard said she would keep doing what she could to help.<\/p>\n

“I make time for the hospice because it’s a very, very worthy facility,” she said.<\/p>\n

“And we’re all going to need it one day, aren’t we?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hairdresser Kelly Wingard knows all too well the difference a fresh cut and a friendly chat can make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[321088,64,63,29562,40397,321087,22103,137,500,133069,29560,150101,79947,30893],"class_list":["post-664848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-advance-care-planning","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-end-of-life-care","tag-families","tag-free-haircut","tag-good-news","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-hospice","tag-palliative-care","tag-regional-health-care","tag-terminal-illness","tag-volunteer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}