The Bridge Hospice

Thank you for featuring The Bridge Hospice in the August edition of Canadian Family Physician.¹ The Bridge Hospice was an amazing accomplishment from dream to fruition. Unfortunately, the article essentially misses the point of building a rural hospice.

It took 3 women with a vision and an entire community to build and staff the hospice. In 2006, Lynda Pecora, Pauline Faull, and Rosaleen Dunne held a meeting in Warkworth, Ont, and invited the community to participate in their dream of a residential hospice. These passionate and committed nurses inspired a community of 700 people to create a physical and emotional space for those with terminal illnesses in their community. This was a formidable task, but they accomplished it by demonstrating a profound belief in the importance of end-of-life care.

A board of directors was formed in 2006 and by 2009 they had laid the groundwork for a charitable organization and started fundraising. Within a year they had raised more than $350 000 for capital expenses. That was augmented by another $100 000 over the next 2 years. A Trillium grant of $187 000 for operating expenses allowed the board to start hiring staff. This staff trained more than 70 volunteers from the community, who continue to provide emotional and physical support to residents and their families.

Dr Henderson joined the board in 2010 and should rightly be commended for doing a wonderful job getting The Bridge Hospice up and running, but it was the entire community that built the hospice by contributing money and volunteer labour to its construction.

I hope that the take-away message from the article is that a community can build a hospice. It took a dream, passion, and a committed community in rural Ontario to make The Bridge Hospice a reality. As a former resident of the area, I have experienced the outgoing nature and support of these people and highly commend their team effort.

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