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Long-term care,
hospicehave strong relationship: Provincial group Merry O’Neill, Co-ordinator of End-of-Life Information Service for the provincial umbrella group, says hospice is mainly a home-based program. "People are choosing to be home, where they are more comfortable," she tells Morning Report. O’Neill notes that in many cases, hospice goes into the long-term care home because that is where the person receiving palliative care lives. Often long-term care homes also approach hospice organizations as a resource for information or training. Ontario's hospices are community-based, mainly volunteer organizations. THospice's mission is to help people with life-threatening illnesses live at home or in a home-like setting as comfortably and as fully as possible. There are only eight hospices that have their own beds. Of the 90 programs across Ontario, 12,000 volunteers are relied upon who offer support in more than 300 communities. O’Neill says hospice’s profile and the profile of end-of-life or palliative care in general has increased over the years, mainly due to the aging of the population. "People’s attitude toward health care is also changing. People want more choice" in how they spend their final days, she says. When asked why the term palliative no longer seems to be as common as end-of-life care, O’Neill says Hospice Association of Ontario chose to use this term because it is simply easier for people to understand what they do. "This (term) reaches everyone," she explains. According to Hospice Association of Ontario’s website, in medieval times, a hospice was a place of shelter for travellers on a difficult journey. "No journey in life is more difficult than the path followed by those suffering a life-threatening illness."
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