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Board members of the Nipissing Serenity Hospice were cheering Monday with funding recommendations from the province.
Board Chair Mathilde Gravelle Bazinet explained that a proposal was put forward to the Health Ministry by the Association of Hospice and Palliative Care. “It is recommended that 20 new hospices are funded and we are one of them. “
"Currently, provincial funding is at 66%, so that is 90,000 dollars per bed per year. The Association of Hospice and Palliative Care has recommended funding be increased to 80%. This means that the communities would only have to raise 20% of operational costs compared to the 34% previously.”
A report called Health Care for People Approaching the End-Of-Life: An Evidentiary Framework, recommended that there are few or no hospitalizations during the end-of-life period.
The Auditor General urged that between 484 and 809 beds are needed for Ontario's aging population. Currently there are only 271 hospice beds in the province.
Gravelle Bazinet says “it was pointed out that services in some areas are quite inadequate in comparison to southern and eastern Ontario. Timmins does not have a hospice. And although Thunder Bay has 10 beds they are not considered to be hospice beds because the beds are in a long-term facility. We consider that palliative care.”
With Ontario calling for more progression in end-of-life care, the board continues to work hard to create a peaceful resting place In the Nipissing Serenity Hospice.
A motion recently passed reads that the Nipissing Serenity Hospice will continue on a mission of building a 10 bed autonomous, freestanding home for terminally ill patients and their families.
The funding recommendations really speed things up says chair Gravelle Bazinet. "We are now in negotiations looking at two different parcels of land. Everything is in place so now we just need the land."
