The candles on the meeting table flickered all day. At the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital (RBWH), the Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) team kept vigil. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes in whispers over the day’s cases. Each candle marked a passing. Each, a story, a reason the work should go on.
When Metro North Health's VAD team’s future fell into doubt, they turned to us. They already had the statistics and executive summaries. What they needed was a way to show the value of their impact through the stories that rarely made it onto paper. Stories that could only be told.
We set up quietly. Staff came through in ones and twos. Families spoke from their kitchens and living rooms. Sixteen stories rose to the surface. Just fragments, but enough. The outcome? Funding renewed. Perceptions shifted. And in the centre of it all, those candles burning, hour after hour.
The candles at the centre of the meeting room mark each passing from VAD. A soft ritual in a hard place.
How We Worked
When Metro North Health's VAD team asked us to listen, they helped us navigate where to begin.
They chose the families. Cleared the time. Made space in their own office so we could set up a story hub, we turned a corner of a conference room into a quiet recording studio. Over the following days, nurses, doctors, and execs stepped in one by one. Some came ready to speak. Others just needed a moment.
We followed the families outwards, to homes, kitchen tables, verandahs. For some, it was a guided interview. For others, a recorded conversation between two people who’d lived it together. Each session shaped by comfort and some scripting.
From more than 25 recordings, we drew together 16 voices. The team gave us a space for the exhibition. Then helped bring people to it. The result: a multimedia story campaign, audio, images, handwritten words. All delivered in under three months, and played back to the people it was made for.
Five Conversations That Stayed With Us
Stories from the families and VAD patients who trusted us with their last days together.
What This Made Possible
These stories were meant to be heard. It was captured to be shared with senior leaders, played during key presentations, exhibited on-site, and archived as the first 100 days of operation.
They helped renew funding. They helped shift perceptions.
They reminded decision-makers what this team really does beyond policy, clinical care, and paperwork. For the VAD team, storytelling wasn’t a side project. It was the difference between being understood and being overlooked.
That’s what we offer: a way to bring the human heart of your organisation's impact into the room where decisions are made.
FiveVoices from Inside the System
Stories from the clinicians, coordinators, and leaders who stood beside the families.
Talking Stories Studio is the enterprise production arm of Talking Stories.
We partner with organisations, corporate, and institutions to document and translate impact, through recorded interviews, photography, audio/ video storytelling, and public or internal exhibitions.
Our work captures the human side of complex systems. What people experience. What teams carry. What decision-makers need to hear, not just read. We create story assets built for boardrooms and briefing packs rooted in real voices.
If your organisation does work worth listening to, we’ll help you tell it. From the inside.