 What is Palliative Care?
| "Care that aims to relieve suffering and improve the quality of living and dying" |
Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association |
Since
1985, a dedicated group of volunteers and health care professionals
have worked quietly in our region providing progressive palliative
care to people facing a terminal illness.
This
region-based palliative care team offers support, care, advice
and time to patients, and their families, in the final stages
of a serious illness.
Palliative
Care is:
- a
combination of active and compassionate therapies intended
to comfort and support individuals and families who are
living with a life-threatening illness
- not
restricted to cancer patients
- includes
assistance with decision-making, symptom control, emotional,
social and spiritual well-being
- a
focus on quality of life, family support and end of life
care
- the
active support of dignity for the dying, their families
and significant others
- care
that can be provided at home, in hospital, in long term
care facilities or in hospice
- support
that involves the person and requires their consent
Position Statement on Euthanasia:
Palliative Care is active compassionate care directed towards improving quality of life for the dying and their families. The primary aim is to relieve suffering - physical, emotional and spiritual. It tries to enable patients to live as fully as possible within the constraints of their disease and to die as comfortably as possible when that time comes.
It seeks neither to hasten nor to postpone death. After consultation with the patient and/or family, withholding or withdrawing of life-prolonging treatments can be appropriate, particularly when such treatments are considered futile. The patient and family are supported, guided and accompanied as the life of the patient comes to a close.
The Hospice does not support legalizing euthanasia. It seeks to find better ways of caring for the dying.
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