Health committee  And they struggle because we take their best doctors.

Health committee  Yes. Almost across the country you can find a pocket of something where you go, “Wow, that's great”. I'm from the east coast, so I'll bring this one up. It's quite new. We did a project in partnership with Prince Edward Island where we did training with our paramedics. You may have heard of it.

Health committee  It's imperative that it's part of it. Throughout my whole career, I've said that the pain and symptom management part of it is the easy stuff. It's the existential suffering that is always the hardest. There are so many things we can do for all the other symptoms, but at the end of the day, this is a monumental time in that person's life and for their family.

Health committee  We're actually working right now on some staffing models. As my colleague here says, part of the problem with trying to develop what human resources are required for palliative care is that there aren't any good evidence-based models of the numbers of people they have. What is out there starts to talk about how many physicians you need, and that's all it looks at.

Health committee  Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. This is such an important issue that we are thrilled to be here to help support this. To quickly come to the point of the matter, our society certainly recommends the acceptance of Bill C-277. We've been supporting this concept for quite some time.

Health committee  I can speak to that briefly. Within the palliative care world, we're starting to move forward with something that's becoming more of an international phenomenon, although it's based on work done by Allan Kellehear from Ottawa, called “compassionate communities”. Its focus has been looking more at people with terminal illnesses, and when we're dealing with dementias, we're dealing with incurable, life-limiting illnesses.

Health committee  We could go with what the public often calls it: old-timers disease. Often people haven't heard the word Alzheimer's; they hear “old-timers”. Some of my older patients and families especially will call it that. But I agree with what everybody is saying. It really needs to be all-encompassing.

Health committee  At the same time, though, a lot of it depends on family support.

Health committee  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.

Health committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Casey, honourable members, and guests. It's with great pleasure that I'm here to speak on this, because not only am I the president of the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians but I am also the son of a lovely lady with dementia. It's very timely for me to come and speak on this.