HEDDY SOROUR

Securing permanent and sustainable funding is the Hospice Hub’s next priority. The fledgling organization has managed to secure several grants and had two extraordinarily successful fund raisers in the past year. In spring the Hike for Hospice raised over $82,000, allowing the Hospice to hire a part time nurse coordinator. The most recent fundraiser, the Polar Bear Plunge raised nearly $84,000 enabling the Hospice to hire a part time executive director.

“I am really hoping that having this dedicated time as an executive director that I’ll be able to provide some additional time and provide some additional support to the volunteers that are doing that grant writing and really work on getting some sustainable funding,” says Onalee Randell, the incoming part time executive director.

Randell, a registered nurse for more than 35 years, has an extensive background in management and program development in the healthcare field. Growing up in the North West Territories, she says she’s mostly worked in small communities and understands the challenges faced by the region when it comes to healthcare and in particular palliative care. According to Statistics Canada more than 55 percent of Canadian die in hospitals.

“I have a huge passion for palliative care as a physician and I think it’s a very under serviced area in medicine. Patients basically have two choices: to die in a hospital or at home. But sometimes it would be very nice to have an in-between that takes the stress away from their family and they don’t have to be in a hospital setting where hospitals are not always the most pleasant place especially when you’re nearing the end of your life,” says Dr. Alistair MacDonald, family physician at Perth Medical Clinic and emergency doctor at Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital, who took part in the Polar Bear Plunge.

Undeterred Randell believes that sustainable funding can be developed through communication.

 “I think we have to tell the need. We all know the need, we can all tell the stories. We need to tell the stories and make them real, taking those Statistics Canada numbers and making them mean something and tell the story, even to the funders, and I love doing that kind of stuff,” says Randell.

Not yet two years old the Hospice is garnering tremendous support from both residents of Lanark County and the health care community that serves them.

“The Hospice Hub is an amazing cause and provides hospice and palliative care to people in the area. It offers home support, and being a physician, I know first hand that there’s such a shortage of home care support right now in the community that can be offered through the public system,” says MacDonald.

Meanwhile Randell, began working with the Hospice Hub some six months ago as a volunteer with no thought at that time to becoming the first paid executive director.

“I got an email about the Hospice and it was about the Hike and it asked do you want to join the hospice newsletter, and I thought I didn’t even know about this, so I submitted a volunteer application and Anne recognized me, and said they wanted to get the home support program going, so I worked with Janet Douglas and Hannah and Anne and the rest of the volunteers,” explains Randell.

Now, with referrals coming in on a daily basis from Ontario Health at Home, from the hospital, from health care providers – nurse practitioners, doctors and residents, Anne Janssen, founder and outgoing volunteer executive director says they’re looking at all their staffing needs.

“We’d like to hire a social worker to round out the time of the nurse coordinator and so they can work together as a team and provide full time coordination because the need is huge. We’re just seeing it start to explode,” says Janssen.

Over the course of the past year, the Hospice Hub has been launching services explains Janssen.

“It’s all been launching, get the home support launched, the bereavement is already going but to expand it and grow it. Launch the advanced care planning and now we’re getting referrals almost every day,” says Janssen.

It’s time to consolidate the programs, says Janssen. The big focus she says is to keep serving people now that all the policies and procedures are in place and the systems are known.

This year the Hospice will start its Day Hospice program. The program will provide an accessible day away program to support local residents facing end of life, and their caregivers. Activities, at the day hospice are designed to improve quality of life, support mental health and wellness, decrease isolation and increase social connection while providing caregivers with a day off.

“Thanks to a new grant from the Perth and District Community Foundation we will be able to offer a day hospice program starting hopefully by late spring,” says Janssen.

A permanent location for the day hospice program has yet to be identified, although a temporary space in Smiths Falls is available at the PEP – Senior’s Therapeutic Centre.

“That’s the program planning part that I’m excited about – is finding the location, making sure that it’s accessible talking to people and existing volunteers to make sure that we can offer complimentary therapies and develop the kind of programming that we want to offer in our day hospice. We’ll do one day a week in two communities, so one day a week in Perth and one day a week in Smiths Falls,” says Randell.

Once the program is up and running, it will support six clients at a time. Generally clients participate in a day program on average eight weeks at a time. The concept is to create a home like atmosphere, that is private, quiet, and does not reflect any medical intervention.

Once the day program is up and running the next focus will be to further expand the home support programs and secure and launch a hospice residence where folks who don’t want to die in a hospital or at home can spend their last days in a warm, caring and comfortable environment that supports their needs 24/7.