I would like to continue. Thank you again for the opportunity.
My name is Dipti Purbhoo and I'm the executive director of The Dorothy Ley Hospice. I'm a nurse by background with over 25 years of experience in palliative and community care.
Palliative care is an approach to care that focuses on what matters most to the individual. Through pain and symptom management, education and support, the goal is to give the person as much time living with as much quality as possible.
Palliative care also focuses on helping loved ones through the process with information and support. It is provided by a team of people, including doctors, nurses, social workers, volunteers, family and friends. It is a powerful expression of compassion, kindness and caring, and it is something that each and every person and their family should have at the end of life. It is what we would all want for ourselves and our loved ones.
In Canada today, palliative care is not available to everyone. Access to palliative care is dependent on where you live, whether there are hospice palliative care services available, how much information you have about palliative care, whether you speak the language and whether your doctor or health care provider thinks it will help you. As a result, many people do not get access to palliative care, which often results in death in hospital without support, and in some cases people choosing medical assistance in dying.
Medical assistance in dying is a choice that is available to those with a life-limiting illness. However, when people choose MAID because they do not have access to all palliative care options to help ease their suffering, MAID is no longer about choice but is about having no choice and having no alternative but suffering with no help. MAID should not be a substitute for all the options palliative care can provide. It is but one option, not the only option.
In our experience here at The Dorothy Ley Hospice, we work with many, many patients at the end of life, as well as with their families.