I know the question was asked, how many hospice beds do you need per population? The Gomes formulas dictate between eight and 10 hospice beds per 100,000 of population. If we have a million people in Brampton, we are looking at a lot more than 10 beds, which is what we have at the moment. There are initiatives at a provincial level to build hospices, but we have the issue that 54% of patients are dying in acute care hospitals, when we don't really want 54% to be dying in acute care hospitals.
We have shown that the better the community support, the more likely the patient is to go home and not bounce back into the emergency room. I think that's where our issue is. We don't necessarily need only hospices. We probably need some form of step-down facility in which you don't have a physician going in every day, but maybe every second or third day; in which you don't need one nurse per three patients, but maybe one nurse per five patients; in which you concentrate more on patient care, not necessarily just giving the medication; in which you bring in psychosocial support, which is so poorly lacking.
There is very little funding for spiritual or psychosocial support. Much of the funding is being brought in privately, or from people who are donating money, and from raising money from a charitable organization.
I think palliative care needs to be brought into the health care act. Hospices really need to be brought in as well, so that they're not a separate entity. That could increase the continuum. We don't need fragmented money coming from different areas. We need one pool and everyone should be going along that line.