by Pam Kenny In response to “Hospice volunteer program faces uncertainty,” March 12, I am grateful to the reporter for the informed article and to the hospice volunteers for bringing to the region’s attention the void in services after the cut by Powell River General Hospital (PRGH) and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) to the Powell River Community Health hospice program.
I would have thought that it was the responsibility of PRGH/VCH to make this announcement. Instead, it was left to the “floundering” dedicated volunteers to provide a forum for discussion whether to form a hospice society in the region.
While it is common for communities to have hospice societies, this writer wonders why VCH couldn’t have allowed a transition period for the program to move from the umbrella of the hospital to the community and provided more support and expertise in the planning phase of a hospice society? Instead, VCH created a void of over six to eight months for providing services similar to those provided by the hospice program to patients.
I am recently widowed. My husband and I benefited greatly from the hospice and caregiver program at PRGH under the co-ordination of Linda deVries. The program and coordinator provided caregiver support, anticipatory grief counselling, grief counselling, counselling on dying and living with an incurable disease, a library of resource material, a once-yearly course entitled “Journey through Grief” and the annual display in Town Centre Mall with the Tree of Remembrance.
We were unaware of all these duplicated counselling and service options available to palliative patients mentioned by Viola Kaminski, VCH spokesperson. Yes, there are counsellors listed in the yellow pages of the phone book, but none list the “specialized palliative and grief counselling” that was provided by deVries. Nor do they advertise training for hospice volunteers or a library of resource materials available to patients and their caregivers.
Unfortunately, I agree with Sandy McCartie, that health authorities seem to want to put more of the responsibilities of palliative services onto the community. PRGH provides palliative nursing for end-of-life care, but the dedicated hospice bed is still an acute care bed, which is not always available to palliative patients. I find this lack of commitment to palliative services, in conjunction with the hospice program cut, very disturbing.
To begin the discussion for the formation of a hospice for the Powell River region, is VCH willing to match funds with the community and region to form a hospice society?
Hopefully, the article will spawn some local discussion and readers will respond to Joanne Murray’s request for feedback.
Pam Kenny is a resident of Texada Island
