There have been some improvements, and it's always good to try to recognize those when they are happening. In the last year, I've been constantly saying that we are a country of pilot projects. We have a lot of good pilot projects that never seem to go anywhere, even if they're successful. Basically, we need to stop the pilot projects. We need to look at what's already been developed and we need to start implementing them. It's hard to do that without a national strategy, both for this, specifically, and for palliative care in general.
I know your time is running out here, but I just want to quickly clarify something. When you ask about palliative care, there's often a misperception that palliative care is in a facility, whereas most palliative care is in the home setting. With the last health accord, one of the targets of monies for home care was the enhancement of palliative care. Fortunately and unfortunately, probably the only thing that we saw happen in many provinces—although I certainly can't speak for every province—was that there was actually a bit of an augmentation to home care services if patients were attached to palliative care services. So it's still something to look at. Unfortunately, some palliative care programs look at more of a time-based, prognosis-based time to be involved versus ours in particular, where we look at needs-based.
Palliative care is really intended to be accessed early on. That's when it's most effective. That's when you can start working with people, their primary care physicians, and their specialists to augment things, to help make sure that things like advanced care planning are done to determine the goals and wishes of patients. If staying home is the goal, that's the time when you can ensure that you have other teammates around to help navigate the system to make sure that this happens. Now, unfortunately, that doesn't happen everywhere, but it is something that should be happening. Again, it should be happening earlier on for people. I have cared for people with that same kind of condition in their homes. There are a lot of factors, but those people have been able to stay at home quite comfortably.