This column is not detached journalism because my wife, ravaged by cancer, died at our home in Ontario with professional and volunteer palliative care.
Through the week, a dozen medical professionals including several nurses, a visiting oncologist, a nurse practitioner, a therapist, and a psychologist visited our home.
The volunteer help came from a small rural church congregation in our village.
That makes me a passionate advocate for end-of-life care in Mountain View County and the work of the Olds and District Hospice Society.
The society has 64 volunteers, including 45 who have training in providing this care, the counselling and hand-holding that eases the final days and hours of life for the terminally ill and comforts the affected families.
There is a full-time director and a part-time service coordinator, and a pair of hospice (palliative care) suites that the society leases at the Seasons Encore retirement centre.
The work of the society requires a budget of $150,000.
The nearest other hospice is a seven-bed facility just opened in Red Deer.
A word about Mary Smith, the new director. Mary worked as a development officer – a student aid fundraiser and allocator – at Olds College until she answered a newspaper advertisement from the Olds and District Hospice Society for her new job.
I’m not detached when I write about Mary because she helped me create a Florence Erion bursary at Olds College in memory of my wife and persuaded me to fund a bench and bridge in the college Wetlands and Botanical Garden, also for my wife.
About Mary as the executive director of the hospice society: I say a perfect fit.
Three Olds physicians who do palliative care medicine and the palliative care nurse at the hospital are part of the hospice society’s network and connect it with terminally ill patients and their families.
The society is planning a permanent hospice in Olds.
A home will be purchased and retrofitted to provide four palliative care suites and a common area and kitchen for the families.
This will require a capital budget of $1 million and increase the annual operating budget of the society to between $300,000 and $550,000.
A word to the politicians.
Palliative care at home or in a hospice costs a fraction of the end-of-life care in a hospital setting, so if you need to cut health-care costs, look at hospices and professional resources for end-of-life home care.
Why do people volunteer and train for end-of-life care?
Mary Smith says it is because they see that they are making a profound difference in the life of the dying and their families.
“It provides the volunteers with a vision and a sense of purpose,” she says.
The dying and their families must deal with physical and emotional pain, with fear and anger, and with the turmoil that comes from not accepting an impending death.
The goal of good palliative care is to replace those negatives with a peaceful end to life.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran business and political journalist and author
