Tag: medical assistance in dying

EOLPodcast

Ep. 549 The “Dying Team”: Community-Supported Deathcare with Anna Byrne

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Learn about a compassionate, community-based approach to caring for someone at the end of life, including the use of medical assistance in dying.

Portrait of a woman with long hair smiling, holding a book titled 'The Last Caravan' next to text about the 'Dying Team' focusing on community-supported healthcare.

My special guest Anna Byrne is and end-of-life educator, speaker, and author who holds degrees in Gerontology, Psychology, Education, and Theology with a thesis on Medical Assistance in Dying. She is the author of the memoir Seven Year Summer and The Last Caravan: The Power of Community at the End of Life, which we discuss today. She shares her experience supporting a friend through the last months of her life, including using MAID and also planning her funeral and burial. She has also co-founded Community-Supported Dying in the qathet region in British Columbia. Learn more at her website:

annambyrne.com

Get the book here

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • How Anna first became acquainted with Mary Morgan and eventually ended up supporting her in her dying process
  • How Mary approached her dying as an activist just as she had lived her life
  • The “dying team” Mary created to help her at the end of her life
  • How COVID complicated the plan for Mary’s last days
  • The Ring Theory for creating a support network
  • How her team used Lotsa Helping Hands to organize tasks and helpers
  • The Blessing Way ritual and how the team applied it to Mary’s care
  • The “messiness” of community, especially around the end of life
  • Anticipatory grief as the date of death approached
  • How they helped Mary plan and carry out her funeral and burial

Links mentioned in this episode:

AnnaByrneInterviewDownload