It was Dylan Thomas who wrote, in his famous poem: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
It was Dylan Thomas who wrote, in his famous poem: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Personally, I hope to be fighting it to the very end, but we know that at some time, sooner or later, the end will come. Palliative care is about making that end and progress towards it the best it can be.
It seems almost counter-intuitive to ask clinicians to help manage a patient's dying weeks and months because all their training is about "fixing" us.
For them, accepting the inevitability of death is almost an admission of failure. That has certainly been the reaction in the past. Once a patient has reached the stage where the finality of death becomes a when and not why, we are asking doctors and others in the health service to change their whole outlook on what constitutes good care.
All the evidence we have suggests that the change in culture is variable across Scotland and is equally variable when it comes to which terminal illnesses get the attention.
There are certainly instances of good practice to be highlighted but, sadly, there are still too many instances when patients and their families are let down badly by inappropriate or unavailable provision.
It is also important to remember the history. Palliative care really began in the voluntary sector because of the acknowledged failure of the health service to deal appropriately with end-of-life issues.
It has only relatively recently that it has begun to be provided within mainstream health provision, so for the health service it is a new-ish phenomenon.
Getting the health service to accept that it should be part of mainstream care has been a long process and, even now, half of all spending on specialist palliative care services has come from the voluntary sector. Hospices such as St Margaret's in Clydebank are required to raise their money in many and various ways.
There can hardly be a reader of this newspaper who has not at some time or another contributed to a hospice funding campaign. The public response to those campaigns has been overwhelmingly generous, which reflects a genuine recognition of the need.
That is one reason why I have decided to submit the proposal for a Member's Bill which would enshrine the right to palliative care in law. Much has changed in society since Dame Cicely Saunders founded the first hospice in the 1960s. More people now recognise that this is a specific branch of medicine which should be recognised like any other.
Understandably, that decision has also been coloured by the chorus of calls for assisted suicide to be made legal in Scotland.
I am concerned that those calls should not exist in a vacuum - or that they should begin to affect the way we view those who are dying from a terminal illness.
Hence this attempt to make sure that the needs of the palliative care sector are put front and centre. If you like, this is about assisted living and not assisted dying.
We need to make certain that the health service does provide care which improves the quality of life for patients and their families when they have to confront what might be the worst news of their lives.
The important thing about palliative care is that it isn't just about clinical activity and the alleviation of physical symptoms, though that, of course, is a major part of what is needed. It goes much further and deals with the whole person - including their psychological and spiritual needs.
Nor should it be confined to a hospital or hospice setting. More people are responding to the desire to die at home and, again, mainstream medicine has to learn to take that on board.
The Scottish Government's October launch of its Palliative Care Action Plan was very welcome to all palliative care campaigners, but we already know that provision of care is very patchy and that many illnesses are simply not dealt with in an appropriate way. Everyone, regardless of their final illness, should have the same access to a dignified and pain-free death.
Marie Fallon, professor of palliative medicine at Edinburgh University, has a useful image that helps to get this into perspective because she sees current provision as a set of jigsaw pieces which haven't yet been sorted into a whole image.
It isn't that Scotland doesn't already have some good examples of palliative care; it's just that, so far, it hasn't been properly joined up.
That is what my bill is about and I venture to say would have been endorsed by Dylan Thomas, too.
Roseanna Cunningham is SNP MSP for Perth.
