Dying for Care: Hospice Care or Euthanasia

I hope we restore society's sense of the value of life. We must restore the joy in caring for people who are dying. - Dorothy C.H. Ley, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C), F.A.C.P., Founder and first President of the Canadian Palliative Care Foundation

No one has to suffer unbearable pain and symptoms in North America. No one. Yet tens of thousands do every day. Is it any wonder that people want to know more about euthanasia? People do not want to experience the horrific deaths that many of their parents and grandparents experienced.

Hospice care, well practised and rooted in the philosophy of meeting individual's physical, emotional, spiritual and information needs is one answer to the cravings that North Americans have for a dignified dying process. 

Harry van Bommel wanted to know what was really happening in Canada. He sent questionnaires out to the leaders, professionals and volunteers, in the field to get their ideas. This books summarises their views admirable. Some of the leaders who participated in national survey include:

 

Heather M. Balfour, Executive Director, Community Hospice Association of Ontario

Anne Bell, Executive Director, Island Hospice Association (P.E.I.)

Laurie Bennett, Executive Director, Hospice of Peel, Inc.

A group of Brockville, Ontario practitioners: 

Janis Brown, Palliative Care Consult Nurse

Cheryl Chapman, Community Outreach Co-ordinator

Shirley Cooper, Bereavement Co-ordinator

Barbara Noonan, Palliative Care Nurse Consultant

Wilma O'Connell, Palliative Care Program Director

Gertrude Paul, Palliative Care Consult Nurse

and Sandra Thompson, Palliative Care Consult Nurse

Carol Derbyshire, Executive Director, Hospice of Windsor

Dr. Louis Dionne, Director General of Maison Michel Sarrazin (Sillery, Quebec)

Rev. Sally Eaton, Staff Chaplain, The Wellesley Hospital, Toronto

Linda Gilpin, R.N., Coordinator of Palliative Care, North York General Hospital

Larry Grossman, Physician Manager, Palliative Care Program, Scarborough Grace Hospital

Joan Henderson, President, Hospice King

Elizabeth Latimer, M.D., Director of Palliative Care, Hamilton Civic Hospital

Dorothy C.H. Ley, MD, FRCP(C), FACP, Founder and Past President of the Canadian Palliative Care Foundation

Cecile Lynes, Co-ordinator, Toronto Citizen Advocacy

Evelyn MacKay, former nurse, therapeutic touch practitioner, palliative care volunteer and teacher

Jackie MacKenzie, Executive Director, Hospice of London

Tom Malcomson, Professor, George Brown College and Member of the Southern Ontario Training Group

Balfour Mount, MD, FRCS(S), Professor of Palliative Medicine and Director of Palliative Care Medicine, McGill University

Barbara O'Connor, Executive Director, The Hospice of All Saints (Ottawa)

Joanne C. Oosterhuis-Giliam, Clinical Director, Hopewell Children's Homes

Catherine A. Rakchaev, R.N., CEO, The Dorothy Ley Hospice

David J. Roy, BA(Math), STB, STL, PhL, Dr Theol, Director of the Center for Bioethics, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal

Dr. Margaret R. Scott, Associate Professor of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Provincial Consultant, Palliative Care, Newfoundland Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation

Marilynne Seguin, Executive Director, Dying With Dignity

Trinity Hospice Toronto members: 

Elaine Hall, Resource Person

Beth Pelton, Co-ordinator

and Pam Leeb, Board Member

Steven Waring, Palliative Care Volunteer, Hospice Dufferin (Orangeville, Ontario)

Virginia Clark Weir, Manager, Continuing and Palliative Care, Scarborough Grace Hospital

Wellington Hospice Members: Walter Boos, President

Jackson E. Mathieu, M.D., Medical Director

Barbara Plunkett, Coordinator

Wolf Wolfensberger, Professor, Syracuse University Division of Special Education and Rehabilitation, Director, Training Institute for Human Service Planning and developer of the PASSING Evaluation Tool for Human Services.

Across Canada there are people who have a terminal illness, such as the end stages of heart disease, cancer, and AIDS, who are pain free, mentally alert, able to participate in making decisions, and talk with their families, comfortable and able to give and receive emotional and spiritual support with the people they love. These people are benefiting from palliative care either through a formal program of care or through an informal network of support from their doctors, visiting home nursing, home care programs and their families. Unfortunately they are not the majority.

This book addresses what needs to be available to provide excellent health care at the end of someone's life. These are not the idealistic musings of uninformed advocates but the thoughtful considerations of front-line practitioners of end-of-life care.

Dying for Care discusses the benefits and needs for more hospice care and examines euthanasia within the greater context of what people who are dying really want. Dying for Care will also present current information on Canadian hospice care as well as providing a public forum for the thoughts of some of Canada's palliative care and euthanasia experts.

For all those concerned for the dying, this book is an essential guide ... for all those who think about their own death, this is a comprehensive study of the comforts (and lack of comforts) that exist today. - June Callwood

112 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches, ISBN 1-55307-023-2, $15 ebook, $20 paperback

Table of Contents

Author's Note

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1 Hospice Care

Chapter 1 Living Fully Until Death: Two Stories

Chapter 2 Canadian Palliative Care: Meeting the Full Range of Human Needs 

Chapter 3 Palliative Care within Our Flawed Health Care System

Chapter 4 Analysis of Palliative Care Today

Chapter 5 Standards of Care: How Do We Get the Palliative Care We Need?

Chapter 6 Reflections on Palliative Care: Voices from the Front Line

Chapter 7 Palliative Care in The Year 2000: What We Need to Do

Part 2 Euthanasia

Chapter 8 Euthanasia: Common Arguments For and Against

Chapter 9 Euthanasia: Voices from the Front Line

Chapter 10 Hospice Care and Euthanasia: Personal Reflections

Canadian Senate Committee Report summaries on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicides.

Bibliography

Index