Home News Opinion: Georgina families deserve a hospice residence

Opinion: Georgina families deserve a hospice residence

September 25, 2024

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By: Daniel Nowoselski, Canadian Cancer Society Advocacy Manager – Hospice Palliative Care and Laurie Knapp, Hospice Georgina Executive Director

When a loved one is in the final stages of a life-limiting illness like cancer, you want them close to home. Most of us want to spend as much time together as possible, surrounding our family member with the people and things that make them happy. We hope to have their pain and symptoms under control so they can focus on living in the time they have left.

For many, the end-of-life care option that helps them do that is a hospice residence.

Hospice residences are home-like settings where people have privacy and dignity, and the space to be surrounded by family day and night. Hospice teams not only care for their symptoms and control their pain, but also provide support for their emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and for their family’s grief and bereavement.

Hospices are part of the public health care system in Canada. But for Georgina families, the nearest hospice residences are in Port Perry, Alliston or Newmarket.

Enduring the drive every day to and from those communities or even further away, no matter the weather, to be with their loved one during their final life stage makes an already-difficult time so much harder, and robs people of precious hours together.

And for many, the distance means a hospice residence is just out of the question. When that happens, people are more likely to die in a setting they didn’t choose. Some caregivers may sit up through the nights at a hospital with a loved one who wishes they were in a more private or comfortable place. Some people may have to witness their loved ones pass away in the hallways of overcrowded emergency rooms.

That’s why Hospice Georgina and the Canadian Cancer Society are working together to urge the province to build a bricks-and-mortar hospice right in Georgina. We believe everyone, including those living in Georgina, should have access to a variety of end-of-life care choices.

Every region should have seven hospice beds per 100,000 people. But a November 2023 report by the Canadian Cancer Society found that Ontario only has 3.47 beds per 100,000 people, below the national average. And, worse still, York Region has a population of 1.2 million people, but only 25 hospice beds are available, and they are often full.

In the community, Hospice Palliative Care (HPC) from Southlake Regional Health Centre does wonderful work, and Hospice Georgina volunteers provide compassionate support in homes. However, a hospice residence in Georgina would offer families a vital option. It would ensure that people can maintain their dignity, stay as comfortable and pain-free as possible, and be surrounded by the people and things they love, day and night, in a space that truly feels like home.

To make it happen, Ontario must invest in a palliative care hospice residence right in Georgina.

Georgina residents can show their support for building a hospice residence in the community by sending a letter to their elected officials at cancer.ca/hospice.