Heart of Hastings Hospice - a field trip

Hospice Muskoka has two palliative care hospice beds
in Bracebridge hospital

There are amazing people in rural Ontario. Cottage Country increasingly means a lot of us who are retiring to cottage country. With our health intact, our family's raised, we can now turn our energies to volunteering. Madoc has a wonderful park, built with grants, and it is a great place for kids to play!

I have now volunteered for Hospice in both the Muskoka region and Lanark County, Ontario.
Hospice Muskoka runs children's Expressive Arts Therapy Bereavement groups, as do many. My local hospice group has bereavement groups for adults and children. Dignity House Day Hospice, in Perth, Ontario, is an adult day away program for those with life-threatening illnesses.

The big cities have their health issues; the small towns have theirs. I was amazed to travel to Heart of Hastings Hospice, where they have successfully bought and renovated a hospice building, with three years of sustainable funding. The building houses their hospice office.

June Callwood Award

I first became aware of the opportunities for hospice-type volunteering, reading the book, Twelve Weeks in Spring; A woman's seminal role in the hospice movement.
A woman's seminal role in the hospice movement. Twelve Weeks in Spring is the inspiring story of a group of people who came together to help a friend battling cancer, and thereby discovered their own unexpected strength and humanity. In February 1985, 68-year-old Margaret Frazer was told by her doctor she had terminal cancer. A retired, single woman, whose family was far away, she faced a situation all too familiar in our society -- a lonely death in a sterile hospital.

Many of the women in the Heart of Hastings Hospice organisation have this award:

June Callwood Awards: 2012 Recipients

– April 20, 2012 5:00 AM This year 11 people and seven organizations from across the province are being recognized with the June Callwood Outstanding Achievement Award for Voluntarism.

Doris Bush and Dr. Janet Webb, both hard-working
members of Heart of Hastings Hospice

A very special award

Flowers for the volunteers

They invited me to speak at the AGM. Here is my PowerPoint presentation. I wrote about them after our visit in August, 2012:

Jennifer, happy to be welcomed to the Heart of Hospice
as a guest speaker. 

Heart of Hastings Hospice, Madoc, Ontario

Heart of Hastings Hospice

 in Madoc, Ontario. They have a robust website, with photos of the recent opening, Aug. 18th.
Myths of hospice abound. Palliative care is a type of healthcare delivery, when interventions and treatment plans have changed to a palliative strategy: keeping the client comfortable.

In the USA you must be declared palliative to qualify for services. This is not the case in Canada. Individuals qualify for Home Care based on various indications.