Thank you, Kelly.
I'm speaking to you from the traditional and unceded territory of the Kanien'kéha, or Mohawk, in a place that has long served as a site of meeting and exchange among many nations.
Palliative care not only benefits the people who receive it and their loved ones. At a time when we are facing significant challenges in our health care systems across the country, CCS believes that investing in palliative care would also help relieve the pressures faced in other parts of our system and improve overall performance. However, the current specialized palliative care workforce is not large enough, and we do not have sufficient beds in hospices and communities to meet the growing demand and changing needs.
We recommend that the federal, provincial and territorial governments continue to prioritize palliative care in their bilateral funding agreements on health care to expand access to palliative care services and hospice beds. This includes increasing the availability of specialist resources for consultative advice, as well as education, orientation and training for all care providers in providing a palliative approach to care.
Furthermore, we echo the recommendations made by the Quality End-of-Life Care Coalition of Canada in their pre-budget submission regarding investments in research on palliative care and investing in data and standards for palliative care. Regarding access to MAID, a written submission from May outlined several recommendations regarding consistent access, data collection, ongoing program evaluation, and education and training for health care providers.
Ultimately, anyone with a life-limiting illness would benefit from greater and earlier access to palliative care from the point of diagnosis up to their death, but our health care systems do not have the capacity to consistently accommodate the choices someone with cancer and their loved ones would like to make regarding their goals of care, their setting of care or what their final days might look like. Everyone in Canada should have access to affordable, culturally safe and high-quality palliative care, as well as the ability to make autonomous decisions about the care that will impact the quality and outcome of their life.
Thank you.