HALIFAX – As a palliative care physician, Dr. Robert Horton has helped may families through a difficult time.
And too often, he has seen patients unable to spend their end of life the way they truly want to.
“I’ve seen lots of people die in crowded hospital rooms or on noisy wards,” Horton said Friday.
“I don’t know anybody who has ever said they want to spend their last days in a hospital but many have no other choice at the moment. And by realization of this dream, patients are going to have choice.”
That dream is Nova Scotia’s first free-standing residential palliative care hospice.
Hospice Halifax, a not-for-profit organization, has spent some 15 years on the project. They have now secured two vacant buildings on Francklyn Street on the campus of the Atlantic School of Theology.
The organization’s plan includes a complete renovation to build a 10,000 sq feet facility.
“I think it’s important to respect people’s desire to be in a homelike setting,” said Hospice Halifax CEO Wendy Fraser.
“What a hospice does is, it really allows family to be there with that person during that really important time and not being a nursemaid because all that is dealt with by hospice staff.”
The hospice will have 24-hour medical support, accommodation for family members and grief counseling, all at no cost to residents.
Capital for the project will be raised within the community, then Hospice Halifax will split the operating budget with the Nova Scotia Health Authority.
In the long run, the hope is that the hospice will free up hospital beds and prove to be cost-effective for the province.
“A hospice bed is about $475 a day, where an acute care bed is $1,200,” said Fraser. “It’s important for us, as we have an aging demographic, to really think about this in dollars and cents ways as well.”
Hospice Halifax will launch their $4 million capital campaign next year and aim to open the hospice in 2017.