Grandmahazel

My mom was a trained hospice palliative care volunteer. She was the primary caregiver for my dad in his end of life journey with lung cancer. The majority of his end of life journey was in their home because of my mom. Six years later my mom was in her own end of life journey - also with cancer. Because of her knowledge and experience navigating the Alberta healthcare system, my mom was the main advocate and orchestrator of her own journey. She spent the last five weeks of her life in an amazing free-standing residential hospice where she was supported and cared for by individuals with hearts for hospice. We, her family, got to be just that - family. The staff and volunteers of that facility supported us as much as they did mom. THIS is what hospice Palliative care CAN be. Unfortunately, this is rarely what I see in our province as I volunteer in this area of health care. I would agree with the comment in a previous post, observing that so much support and attention is being given to MAID and not to quality palliative care and it concerns me greatly. I have seen what it can and what I believe, it should be.