7 minute read
Palliative Care Team, 25 Years of Service
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team here to support and grow other clinicians, we are not only population-based following patients across all care settings. We are also founded and grounded on a partnership based model.
These enduring partnerships have allowed us to collaborate together to provide palliative care physician support, Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist support, team admin support, Home and Community care case management, and two counsellors (shared with McNally House) who can support patients and family during their journey and support the bereaved well after death.
We have published and taught extensively about this model of care, received significant grants from MOH to study the model and have been emulated by many jurisdictions across Canada.
This is very much the model of WLMH itself – focused outwardly toward the community and responsive to its needs.
Over the past 10 year, the Niagara West Palliative Care team has achieved what I would describe as “steady state”.
Many years of growing capacity of the other clinicians’ palliative care skills, and engaging in public education means that, as a whole, our communities’ Palliative Care skills knowledge and comfort keeps growing.
Our community is not dependent just on our team to deliver quality palliative care.
We don’t need to keep adding more and more specialists to our team or asking for huge increases in funding; rather we now focus on physicians who are new to practice or new to our community, and we have shifted more and more to coaching and mentoring models of care.
We also provide direct patient care, of course, but our team model is fluid – ebbing and flowing depending on the patient and family needs, the clinician’s needs and the community’s needs.
Our team statistics are compelling. While still across Canada up to 70 per cent of patients are dying in hospital vs community, our Niagara West Palliative Care Team stats reveal the opposite.
Approximately 65-70 per cent of our patients die at home or hospice not hospital. Because our team is nimbly responsive to all parts of the community and all parts of the hospital including ICU and ER, we have a significant ER avoidance rate (people who didn’t end up having to come to ER for care) and Admission avoidance (we helped them in ER get home instead of needing admission).
What WLMH has demonstrated over the past 25 years is an enduring commitment to the community it serves – tangibly expressed in continuing to support this kind of palliative care team.
While “integrated care”, “interprofessional care”, “patient-centred care”and “primary care capacity building” are all current healthcare buzz terms and trends in Canada and around the world, they have always been the basis of care here. I remember an HHS senior manager saying a few years ago that WLMH had a ‘secret sauce’. But, really, it’s no secret! Rather, it’s the vision for the longterm investment in this kind of model of care. In the healthcare literature this is now referred to as “compassionate collaborative care”.
As part of the family of HHS, we are so proud that our model is part of the larger program of palliative care at HHS.
I have been on active staff with HHS for more than 30 years and I chose to wear my new HHS white coat for my portrait (I used it a lot during the pandemic) as, to me, it represents how we are all now pulling in the same direction with WLMH and that’s simply wonderful.
The new building will be one of the most exciting “next steps” for palliative care in our community since opening McNally House. The new hospital plans have embraced the Niagara West Palliative Care Team, with dedicated space in the new Ambulatory Care Centre (great naming opportunities for families to remember their loved ones). We will be able to support specialist colleagues and their patients like never before.
It allows us to expand what experience around the world has shown – that when a palliative care team is involved in care very early in any life-threatening or potentially life-limiting illness, the person not only lives better but actually longer.
We can be more “upstream’ than ever before. This will be wonderful role modeling for our community as it says that palliative care is about living the best one can, as long as one can.
(Dr. Denise Marshall has been a professor of palliative care at the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University since 1989.)
Dr. Denise Marshall
Proud to support WLMH, its staff, front-line workersArms Open and all the volunteersCounselling working so hard to towards the rebuild and the ground-breaking in 2022!
Its too cold for this line of work. Can
GRIMSBY LEGION you replace the paragraph with:
233 Elizabeth St., Grimsby • 905-945-8421 Facebook: Grimsby Legion
It’s great to see WLMH is going to be providing first-rate health care in our community for decades to come. Congratulations to all involved!
Arms Open welcomes you with compassion, care and support on your healing journey. Our doors are open to the community, with a vision to provide accessible, safe therapy via virtual means or by phone to those who are seeking help. We are here to support you. armsopencounselling@gmail.com • www.armsopencounselling.com
Since 1944 Together we can make a difference
• The Auxiliary has a rich history of over 75 years supporting West Lincoln Memorial Hospital with volunteers who offer care & warmth to patient services, support retail services and fundraising activities for hospital equipment. • Since 2010, The Auxiliary has donated $2,000,000, raised in the community for hospital equipment. • More than 150 devoted West Niagara citizens accumulated 28,000 hours of service in 2019.
• Our volunteers include high school students and adults of all ages who help us make a difference.
• Visit our website at www.wlmauxilliary.ca or on Facebook to learn more.
It’s Rewarding and Fun!
If you have a few spare hours each week & wish to volunteer or would like more information..... Please call the Auxiliary Office at 905-945-2253, ext. 11391 9:00 am till Noon, Mon. - Fri.
Teamwork makes the dream work
Teamwork among the provincial government – since Premier Doug Ford announced WLMH would get rebuilt – HHS officials, hospital staff and local volunteers has culminated to make the new hospital dream a reality. Williscraft - Photo
By Charles Criminisi
Teamwork makes the dream work. This is a fitting way to sum up the collaboration taking place to transform the aging West Lincoln Memorial Hospital (WLMH) into a modern, state-ofthe-art health-care facility.
Rebuilding the site has been a passion of the West Niagara community for many decades. It has also been an important element of Hamilton Health Sciences’ (HHS) capital redevelopment planning since amalgamation in 2014.
A rebuilt WLMH is critical for the seamless delivery of health care across West Niagara, Hamilton and beyond for decades to come.
It will also greatly enhance the kind of care that HHS staff and physicians can provide at the site, increasing opportunities to bring many health services closer to West Niagara, such as a more expansive offering of day surgeries and procedures, diagnostics and specialty clinics for family care and healthy ageing.
As a Member and Chair of HHS’ Board of Directors, I’ve had the opportunity to see much of the work toward rebuilding the site take shape. I have seen public engagement turn into project planning, which continues to result in meaningful, tangible action and project milestones.
Not even a global pandemic could derail this work or slow the momentum. Breaking ground on the new hospital is now only a year away. This project has so much support at all levels, which keeps it moving forward at a rapid pace. This includes engaged elected officials and government partners, talented philanthropy professionals, and a team of dedicated hospital experts who are delivering the vision. However, none of this would be possible without the steadfast commitment and overwhelming generosity of the West Niagara community, which has stood by the hospital through thick and thin, and never wavered in its support.
On behalf of the HHS Board of Directors, I want to acknowledge and congratulate everyone involved in writing this important piece of health-care history. Because of you, the future for WLMH has never been brighter.
(Charles Criminisi served as chair of Hamilton Health Sciences’ Board of Directors)
CHARLES CRIMINISI
Thank you to WLMH and all staff and volunteers for your continued hard work and services.
-Chris Riediger & Your Lincoln Tim Hortons
