A family way of dying

Dear Dr. Pimlott:

Thank you for featuring The Bridge Hospice in the August edition of CFP- MFC. 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 three 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, Ontario 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 a terminal illness 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 over $350,000 for capital expenses. That was augmented by another $100,000 over the next two years. A Trillium grant of $187,000 for operating expenses allowed the board to start hiring staff. This staff trained over 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 a wonderful job of getting the Bridge Hospice up and running, but it was an entire community that built the hospice by contributing money and volunteer labour in its construction.

I would hope that the take away message from the article would be 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 out-going nature and support of these people and highly commend their team effort.

Sincerely,

Claire Grant

Conflict of Interest:

None declared