Interest in forming a society to console the dying and comfort the bereaved is growing in Powell River but it is not yet coordinated, said a clinical grief counsellor.
“The time for a hospice society is absolutely here,” said Sandy McCartie.
She is chair of the Women’s Health Network and is working to form a support group for adults dealing with grief. She was recently speaking with Powell River Division of Family Practice coordinator Guy Chartier and health resource navigator Jo Ann Murray. Chartier brought up a divisions initiative around palliative or end-of-life care.
He said the division is working to host some physician focus groups on palliative care next month.
“It was all very serendipitous,” said McCartie. She has discovered, in the course of speaking with a few people, there’s a lot of support for establishing a hospice society in Powell River. McCartie worked for the Surrey Hospice Society as a bereavement support coordinator. Her partner Heather Baldwin worked as a palliative care nurse.
She said that at this point she does not have the time to take on a leadership role in establishing a hospice society, but can see herself in the future volunteering for it.
Powell River currently has a group of hospice volunteers who provide support, but funding from Vancouver Coastal Health for their coordinator was cut and now the future of the group is in question. She welcomes volunteers to contact Murray.
“Every hospice society started in someone’s basement and then grows,” she added. “We need a person and a little pot of money to pay someone who could do all the paperwork to incorporate as a non-profit society and a board of directors and everything falls into place.”
A hospice facility may be a long way down the road, but just having a society for comforting the dying and the bereaved is a good start, she said. Most hospice work happens in people’s homes or care facilities like Olive Devaud Residence or Evergreen Extended Care Unit.
Readers interested in participating can contact Murray by email: [email protected].
