Plan to establish local palliative care group

Dr Yvonne McMaster said similar groups were already working well in Orange and Taree.

Dr McMaster, who was recently named a finalist in the 2016 Senior Australian of the Year awards for her tireless work in the area, will discuss the importance of effective palliative care and the implications for patients, families and staff at a seminar in Dubbo on Tuesday.

The seminar, hosted by W Larcombe and Son, will be held at the St Andrews Chapel reception room at 6pm.

It was Dr McMaster's seventh visit to Dubbo in two years as part of a "mission" to ensure the city and surrounds had access to specialist palliative care that was as good as metropolitan Sydney and coastal NSW.

She has long maintained while staff in the region did a fantastic job, there was nowhere near enough funding to support what they did.

In September, Dr McMaster asked NSW Premier Mike Baird what kind of death he wanted during an episode of the ABC's Q&A program on dying with dignity, and she had submitted a video question which would feature on this Monday's episode dealing with a similar theme.

"Euthanasia is about the right to die at the time of one's choosing, but palliative care is about the right to live as well as possible, starting early in the course of a terminal condition and ending with the last breath," she said.

"I invite the panel to examine the ethics of a society which is too mean to adequately fund palliative care, leaving us all afraid about what will be available to us when we are suffering or approaching the end of life."

Dr McMaster said she would like to pose the question to Dubbo MP Troy Grant.

"At the pre-election meeting in Dubbo (he) spoke about how much he supported palliative care for the region, but when I met him after the election he prevaricated and blamed the federal government cuts for the state's paltry efforts," she said.