AFL legend Kevin Bartlett slept in a hospital bed alongside his wife, Denise, for months as she battled brain cancer.
But the height-adjustable bed was not in a hospital: it was in the couple’s home in Melbourne’s south-east.
Former Richmond great and footy broadcaster Kevin Bartlett and his late wife Denise.
“After eight weeks of intensive radiation and chemotherapy, she wanted to come home,” the former Tigers star says of his wife of 54 years, who died in March.
“That’s where all her memories were, her pets, family and friends. She was determined to enjoy all the things that were normal.”
The Bartletts are among a growing number of Australians who have accessed Hospital in the Home services, a potential solution to hospital bed shortages that offer patients a chance to heal in the comfort of a familiar environment.
In Victoria, these services provide the equivalent of what a 500-bed facility could offer in one year, according to one study. Separate research has found that patients treated at home do just as well, if not better, than those treated at hospital.
The Bartletts accessed Cabrini Hospital’s neuro-oncology at-home program, which is geared towards patients who are not sick enough for acute care, too unwell for rehabilitation and not yet ready for palliative care.
Cabrini staff fitted out a room in the Bartletts’ Wheelers Hill home with electric beds, overhead hoists, a wheelchair-friendly toilet and shower. A ramp was built at the front and back door so Denise could prune her roses in the garden she had lovingly tended to for more than three decades.
“Instead of being in hospital or in aged care, we had a hospital room in our house,” Bartlett says.
A room in the Bartletts’ home was fitted out with hospital equipment.
Bartlett spent two years as Denise’s full-time carer and learnt how to move her in and out of bed using hoists, how to help her shower and, during her final weeks, how to administer pain relief and make sure she was comfortable.
Nurses and doctors visited during the week to check Denise’s blood pressure, oxygen levels and to dispense medication.
A physiotherapist prescribed daily exercises which helped Denise regain her strength after intensive rounds of cancer treatment. She went from being bedridden, to using a wheelchair and then even walking the dogs.
These improvements meant that after four months, the couple was able to ditch the hospital beds and move back into their regular bed.
Bartlett phoned a team of medical experts whenever he needed advice.
“They helped us live as normally as possible during extraordinary circumstances,” he says.
Kevin and Denise Bartlett tried to live as normal a life as possible following Denise’s cancer diagnosis.
The Bartletts watched their beloved Tigers play at the MCG, attended two grand finals and flew to the Gold Coast for their final holiday together. Denise’s friends would frequently pop by for cups of tea, and she loved visits from her children and grandchildren.
“We were able to achieve things that most people thought were impossible,” Bartlett says. “The Cabrini team who ran this program were extraordinary.”
Friend and fellow Tigers champion Bill Barrot introduced Bartlett to Denise in the mid-60s.
Bartlett describes Denise as the love of his life. “She was fun and had a great sense of humour. She loved people, entertaining, kids and animals. She was a beautiful human being.”
And he has no reservations about cancelling his work as a football commentator to become a full-time carer for Denise following her diagnosis.
“When you love someone so much, you do what you’ve got to do,” he says, his voice quivering. “Denise needed all the support that I could give her, so that was never a burden to me.”
Cabrini treats up to 100 patients a day through its Hospital in the Home program and makes more than 20,000 annual visits to homes.
Cabrini neurologist Dr Ronnie Freilich said patients involved in the program had fewer hospital readmissions because their problems were picked up earlier.
He said families involved in the neuro-oncology at-home program wanted to make sure their loved ones led as normal a life as possible.
While the life expectancy rates for people diagnosed with brain tumours are improving, the statistics are still grim. Patients with the most aggressive and malignant brain tumours have a median survival rate of 14.6 months, while the five-year survival rate is around 10 per cent.
“The services are not just helping the patient,” he said. “While the patient has the tumour, the whole family is living with it.”
Ben Harris, director of policy and research at Private Healthcare Australia, said Australian public hospitals, particularly those in Victoria, were better than their private counterparts when it came to delivering at-home care.
He said this was because current funding models for private hospitals incentivised stays in hospitals rather than at home.
“We have a culture in Australia where patients need to go to care rather than care [go] to the patients,” he said. “We need to do much better.”
James Pollard, president of Hospital in the Home Society Australasia, said the at-home model was critical to the sustainability of the public and private hospital sectors.
“At-home care is something you can scale without needing to spend five years and a billion dollars building a new hospital,” he said. “You can incrementally grow as demand rises – it’s a very scalable model.”
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