https://ryanbowman.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/RyanBowmanLegacy/IQBvkWlr19wnQ6Zm-SRpwevnASbO1IQbOd23WgWtXTrZ4hI?e=cGlplP, https

The Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation, PO Box 6062, Mount Gambier (2026)

24/06/2026

On Monday 30 June, we sit down with SA Health Minister Blair Boyer to again put this question on the table.

Why can a parent or carer in Queensland, NSW, WA, Victoria the ACT and Tasmania, call for an urgent clinical review when they know something is wrong, but a family in South Australia cannot?

That question is the heart of Ryan's Voice.

It is a proposed framework that would give patients, families and carers in our public hospitals a clear, mandated way to escalate when they believe a loved one is deteriorating and they are not being heard. Queensland has had Ryan's Rule for years. It saves lives. South Australia has nothing like it.

We know what it costs when families are not listened to. We lived it. Ryan was 33 when he passed, and an independent clinical review confirmed the failures in his care were systemic, not a one off. No family should have to carry that.

It is a real chance to move Ryan's Voice from an idea into policy that protects every South Australian who walks through a hospital door.

Here is how you can help right now.

Share this post. Every share puts Ryan's Voice in front of more people and more decision makers.

Tell us your story. If you or someone you love has ever felt unheard in a hospital, your experience adds weight to the case for change.

Follow along. We will report back after the meeting and let you know what comes next.

Ryan's voice was not heard when it mattered most. Together we can make sure the next family is.

Limestone Coast Community News ABC South East SA The SE Voice The Advertiser

22/06/2026

💙 End of Financial Year Giving

As June comes to a close, we invite you to help us continue transforming lived experience into meaningful systemic improvement.

Every donation to The Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation helps us advocate for better care, stronger support for families, and lasting change in regional healthcare.

✅ Tax deductible
✅ 100% of donations support our charitable purpose
✅ Every contribution makes a difference

Together, we can ensure that every patient and every family is heard, respected and supported.

Donate today: www. ryanbowmanlegacy.org.au

19/06/2026

What if patient safety was treated the way every other high-risk industry treats it?

On any worksite in Australia, before a high-risk job begins, a Safe Work Method Statement is prepared. The task is broken into steps, the hazards are identified, the risks are scored, and controls are put in place. If three steps came back at the highest possible risk rating, the job would stop. No supervisor would sign it off and no regulator would allow the work to continue until the dangers were fixed.

We applied that exact discipline to something that happens in our hospitals every day: a carer or family member recognising that their loved one is deteriorating, and having no formal way to escalate their concern.

The results are confronting. Using the same risk methodology relied upon across construction, mining and industrial sites, multiple steps in the current system score at the very top of the scale. The controls that would reduce that risk are already known. They have been proven interstate. The only thing missing is the decision to mandate them.

This is the heart of Ryan's Voice. A voluntary program is not a safety net. When the highest level of control is available and is not applied, that is a choice, and the harm is carried by patients, carers and families rather than the system meant to protect them.

We are asking for patient safety to be held to the same standard as any other workplace in this country. Apply the known control. Mandate a carer-initiated escalation pathway in every South Australian public hospital.

In Ryan's memory, we will keep advocating until that right is protected for everyone.

A small snapshot of a much larger document

17/06/2026

The Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation is working to make sure no family has to face what ours did.

After losing Ryan at just 33, we founded the Foundation to drive real change in patient safety across South Australia. Through Ryan's Voice, our palliative care scholarship, the DAISY Award programme and Ambulance Wish Limestone Coast, we are turning grief into something that protects others.

Every donation helps us keep this work going. If you can give, no matter the amount, it makes a genuine difference.

You can donate here: paypal.com/au/fundraiser/charity/5939710

Please share this post too. Spreading the word costs nothing and helps us reach more people who care.

Thank you for standing with us.

DAISY Foundation Palliative Care South Australia Palliative Care Australia Carers SA Ambulance Wish SA

16/06/2026

Understanding the Phases of Palliative Care:

The Terminal Phase

When a patient reaches the terminal phase, death is expected within days or weeks. At this point the focus shifts entirely to what matters most: managing symptoms, ensuring comfort, preserving dignity, and surrounding both the patient and their loved ones with intensive emotional and spiritual support.

Many clinical frameworks also include a fifth phase, Bereavement, dedicated to post-loss support and grief counselling for the family.

It is worth remembering that a patient’s health can fluctuate. People can move back and forth between phases depending on their changing medical needs, so this is rarely a straight line.

As the graphic below from Palliative Care South Australia reminds us, palliative care is about the whole person and the entire journey. It is about choice, autonomy and dignity, it cares for the carer, and it is a human right. It really is more than you think.

If you would like to learn more about localised resources and how these stages are applied in practice, the National Institute on Aging and the Center to Advance Palliative Care are both good places to start.

💙 Every patient deserves comfort, dignity, and a voice in their care.

With thanks to Palliative Care South Australia for the graphic. Find them at palliativecaresa.org.au

09/06/2026

We are thrilled to announce that Charitable Fund has become the Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation’s inaugural corporate sponsor.

HITsa Training and Employment is a proud South Australian organisation that has been supporting small charities across our state since 2002, with more than $775,000 donated to date. Their HITsa Charitable Fund exists to improve the lives of South Australians, and we are deeply honoured to be chosen as a recipient this year.

A special acknowledgement to Carolyn Standfield, HITsa’s Mount Gambier Business Manager, who advocated for our Foundation. Knowing that someone from our own community went into bat for us means the world to Deb and me, and to our whole team.

This milestone falls just days after Ryan’s heavenly birthday. We could not have asked for a more meaningful moment to share this news.

If you would like to know more about HITsa and the wonderful work they do, visit www.hitsa.com.au/charitable-fund

Thank you, Julie, Carolyn, and the entire HITsa team.

We look forward to a long and valued association.

Chris and Deb Brooks
Founders, Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation

Palliative Care South Australia In Home Hospice Care Mount Gambier Palliative Care Australia DAISY Foundation

05/06/2026

Something remarkable is happening.

Rebekah Cutting, a paramedic with the South Australian Ambulance Service, has joined the Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation to help establish Ambulance Wish Limestone Coast, the newest of our four pillars. Seventeen years of frontline experience, now channelled into possibly granting meaningful final wishes to people in palliative care on the Limestone Coast.

And our story is travelling further than we ever imagined.

McDonald is a globally recognised patient advocate, author, survivor and speaker who helps patients find their voice in health systems around the world. This week, Tim featured Rebekah in his Advocacy at Work newsletter, read by advocates, clinicians and health leaders across the United States and beyond.

https://www.advocacyatwork.com/p/this-week-in-advocacy-vol-1

That our work is being noticed on the global stage matters. Not for us, but for every patient and family who deserves better care, better advocacy, and a system that truly listens.

Our four pillars continue to grow:

Ryan’s Voice, our carer-initiated clinical escalation framework for South Australian public hospitals.
The Ryan Bowman Palliative Care Scholarship, supporting excellence in palliative care nursing on the Limestone Coast.
The DAISY Award Programme, celebrating the extraordinary nurses who make a difference every single day.
Ambulance Wish Limestone Coast, bringing Rebekah’s vision and Shayne Haggis’s clinical expertise to life.

We meet with SA Health Minister Blair Boyer on 30 June. The momentum is real.

Thank you, Tim. The Limestone Coast is being heard.

DAISY Foundation Blair Boyer MP Palliative Care South Australia Palliative Care Australia Australian Nursing & Midwifery Journal Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA Branch Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation

04/06/2026

Today the South Australian Government handed down its
2026-27 State Budget.

$45.4 billion for health over four years. A new medical training facility at Mount Gambier. Regional ambulance investment. Mental health units. Women's health clinics.

We acknowledge every dollar. Lives will be better for some of it.
But we need to be direct with you.

The state's own Health Performance Council inquiry into palliative care found that the aspirations of South Australia's Palliative Care Strategic Framework "have not been realised."

It handed ten recommendations to the Minister. The government accepted every single one. An implementation plan was produced. That is all on the public record.

And then today, the South Australian Government handed down a budget with not one dollar allocated to palliative care.

Not one dollar.

Let that land.

Up to 21,000 South Australians will need palliative care this year. Four in five people who die from causes amenable to palliative care end up in a public hospital in their final year of life.

South Australia's hospitalisation rate for palliative care patients is already running more than 20 per cent above the national average. The state's own data describes its palliative care information as sporadic, incomplete, and outdated.

The government knows this. It commissioned the report. It accepted the findings. It promised an implementation plan.

And today it allocated not one dollar to fix it.

This is not an oversight. This is a choice.

Families like ours know what that choice costs. Families like our 80-year-old friends in Clare, right now, today, are trying to navigate a system that is letting them down at the very moment it should be holding them up.

South Australians in the most desperate moments of their lives, with no guaranteed mechanism to raise the alarm and be heard.
Queensland has Ryan's Rule.

Families have a formal, protected right to escalate their concerns when they believe their loved one's condition is deteriorating. South Australia does not.

Ryan Bowman was 33 years old. An independent clinical review confirmed systemic failures in his care. His death is the reason this Foundation exists. His voice is the reason we will not stop.

The Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation has not waited for a budget line to act. In just over a year, we have achieved ACNC registration, DGR endorsement, a formal partnership with the Limestone Coast Local Health Network, a Supportive Association Agreement with DAISY Foundation USA, the inaugural Ryan Bowman Palliative Care Scholarship, and two ministerial meetings with SA Health Minister, Chris Picton MP and Blair Boyer MP, with a third confirmed this month.

We have done all of that without a cent of government funding.
Imagine what is possible when this state finally decides that dying South Australians and the people who love them deserve a place in the budget.

We will be at that table until they do.

Ryan's Voice. It will be heard.

SA Health Palliative Care Australia Carers SA Palliative Care South Australia

02/06/2026

Happy Heavenly Birthday Ryan 🤍

Not a day goes by that you aren’t missed.

One thing I promised myself was that your life would matter, your story would matter, and that you would never simply become a memory people stopped speaking about. You deserved to be remembered for your courage, your strength, your humour, and the way you kept fighting through more than most people could ever imagine.

Your name now stands for compassion, dignity, and change. That is something nobody can take away.

I hope wherever you are, you know how loved you still are and always will be.

Happy Birthday Ryan. Forever 33. Forever loved. 🤍

Deb Brooks Ryan’s Mum

Chris Picton MP Blair Boyer MP

28/05/2026

Welcome to our newest Foundation member, Rebekah Cutting

The Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation is delighted to welcome Rebekah Cutting to our growing team.

Rebekah is a Paramedic with the South Australian Ambulance Service, bringing 17 years of frontline emergency care and patient advocacy experience to our Foundation. Throughout her career, she has developed a deep passion for compassionate, patient-centred healthcare and a profound respect for dignity, comfort, and connection at the end of life.

Rebekah has undertaken further study in palliative care and community paramedicine, strengthening her ability to support people living with terminal illnesses and their families. She is a strong advocate for improving access to quality palliative care services within regional communities, particularly across the Limestone Coast.

Her commitment to establishing an Ambulance Wish program in our region aligns beautifully with the Foundation's fourth pillar, Ambulance Wish Limestone Coast, helping to grant meaningful final wishes to people in palliative care.

We are incredibly grateful to have Rebekah join us on this journey. Her experience, compassion and dedication will be invaluable as we continue working to improve End-of-Life Essentials care across our region.

Welcome to the team, Rebekah. 💙

Ambulance Wish SA SA Ambulance Service Palliative Care South Australia SA Health Blair Boyer MP The SE Voice ABC South East SA DAISY Foundation Carers SA Limestone Coast Community News

The Ryan Bowman Legacy of Care Foundation

24/06/2026

22/06/2026

19/06/2026

17/06/2026

16/06/2026

09/06/2026

05/06/2026

04/06/2026

02/06/2026

28/05/2026

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Organization

Shortcuts

Share

Category