Families with a relative facing end-of-life situations will now have greater options for professional, 24-hour care in their loved ones’ final days.
Guelph MPP Liz Sandals announced $1 million in annual funding to augment services already available at Hospice Wellington’s 10-room palliative care home in Guelph.
Sandals said the $1 million is part of a $12.5-million investment in community-based care granted to the Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network (WWLHIN).
The funding was recommended by the Waterloo Wellington Regional Hospice Palliative Care Council. Across Waterloo and Wellington, palliative care is available through the Waterloo Wellington Community Care Access Centre.
“It’s part of a longer program looking at how we extend community services,” Sandals told those attending the announcement on March 28 at Hospice Wellington.
The program is expected to help families facing palliative care situations.
“This will allow individual care either at home, other places or here at Hospice,” the MPP said.
WWLHIN chair Joan Fisk said, “This is a lot of money, but it does so much,
“One hundred and forty-four Waterloo, Wellington residents will have access to this funding and with this funding people have more choice.”
Added Sandals, “This increases the available hours of service up to 24 hours a day to help support residents wishing to die at home or in a residential hospice.”
Rossyln Bentley, Hospice Wellington executive director, welcomed the additional funding, which she said will serve more people suffering in end of life situations.
“It is thrilling to us these investments are being made,” Bentley said.
The Hospice Wellington facility dealt with 287 people last year.
“Two-thirds of our work is for grief and bereavement clients,” said Bentley.
Emmy Beauchamp recalled when her husband Eric was diagnosed and eventually succumbed to terminal colon cancer, spending his last days at Hospice Wellington.
She had been tending to her husband at home until he eventually requested placement at Hospice, which gave her the opportunity not to have to concentrate on the rigours of caregiving.
“At Hospice I would be able to be a wife rather than a caregiver,” she said. “I’m not a nurse and was unable to give that level of care.”
Coincidentally her husband once served as president of the Rotary Club of Guelph, which has raised money for the facility, something the couple noted when he arrived there with a plaque acknowledging the club’s donations.
“I said to Eric, ‘Honey now you’re going to be able to enjoy some of the fruits of your labour’,” said Beauchamp.
Sandals said the money is solely operating funding.
