Now is the time to consider a contribution to hospice
The number of Albertans dying each year will double over the next 10 to 20 years, said Dr. Donna A. Wilson, a University of Alberta faculty of nursing professor and researcher.
And now, she says, is the critical time for the Pilgrims Hospice Society’s $15-million capital campaign to build an Edmonton first, a free-standing residentialstyle community hospice.
“Currently in Alberta there are 25,000 deaths each year and 80 per cent of these people are elderly,” Wilson told guests at a Sunflower Luncheon fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald.
“Even if they are not all elderly, almost all deaths now take place at the end of an illness where it has become evident to all that there is no curative treatment and death will occur.”
There are nine million baby boomers and four million in the parental generation of baby boomers in Canada who are going to be needing compassionate end-of-life care, she said.
Wilson, a much published researcher, said times have changed and she fully backs a plan to create a free-standing residential-style community hospice.
Under one roof, the facility will have 12 palliative suites with integrated supportive services for family, community and individuals.
A DREAM FOR 24 YEARS
Such a hospice has been the dream for 24 years of two Edmonton friends, Dr. Helen Hays and retired nurse Marion Boyd.
In 1994, Hays parted company with the Royal Alexandra Hospital where she had been director of patient care in intensive care and founded Edmonton’s Pilgrims Hospice Society with friend Boyd.
She had been recruited in 1982 to create the first palliative care unit at the Edmonton General Hospital and later began mentoring Alberta physicians when appointed a University of Alberta associate clinical professor.
Boyd said at the luncheon: “Our work began in my basement before we found a place where we could help treat people who needed care and support.
“Our vision has always been to include a residential home where those at the end of life can stay for free and die with dignity and respect.”
Wilson says long-term she envisions hospices throughout Alberta and across Canada and added why she thinks they are needed.
“It was common until the end of the 1940s, even perhaps the 1950s, for people to be cared for at home until they passed away,” she said.
A FAMILY OBLIGATION
There were few, if any, hospitals in earlier times and it was viewed as a family obligation to look after loves ones, including taking them to a place for a religious or spiritual service and then to burial.
“When I became a nurse in the 1970s, the place for end-of-care life had clearly shifted to the hospital,” says Wilson. “This was because in the years after the Second World War many hospitals were built across Canada — and they grew in size and reputation.”
But she found it deeply disturbing that people dying in hospital were routinely subjected to tests and surgery that were only appropriate for people who could benefit from them.
In 1994, one of Wilson’s first studies found that 80 per cent of all Canadian deaths were in hospitals.
“In 50 years, end-of-life care life had shifted from a natural and cherished family obligation to a place where cures and cure-orientated care was expected and provided,” she said.
40 PER CENT OF CANADIAN DEATHS ARE IN HOSPITAL
Wilson praised Hays, Boyd and other community leaders for their work in transforming death and dying from being medicalized and cure orientated to compassionate, highly effective end-of-life care.
Wilson said today, only 40 per cent of all Canadian deaths are in hospital and most people are staying at home or in a nursing home until the end comes.
“They do not want to be in a noisy and distant hospital, separated from friends and family and at risk of one more blood test or one more treatment,” she said.
An issue now is that we don’t have big families who can share the care of providing 24/7 care at home.
In large families, members no longer have the knowledge and expertise to provide comfortable end-of-life care at home.
Wilson spoke highly of Pilgrims Hospice work, which now includes such programs as a day Hospice program, grief and bereavement counselling, support groups, expressive arts for grieving children, teens and families, and a no-one-dies-alone volunteer home visiting program.
“Most other developed countries now have hospices in every city and every town and recognize the need to care for dying people outside hospitals,” said Wilson.
Richard Wong, A Home for Hospice campaign cabinet chairman, said the goal is to begin construction of Edmonton’s hospice in the spring, with at least 60 per cent of funds raised. The completion goal is the end of 2020.