About The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association

Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement, opens St. Christopher’s Hospice in London, England. 

Hospice Palliative Care as we know and understand it today began in Canada. 

Only a few weeks after Saint Boniface, Dr. Balfour “Mount left a promising career as a urologist to launch the ‘palliative’ service at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Both physicians worked independently in two different hospitals with no knowledge of what was happening at the other.” Dr. Mount previously studied under Dame Cecily Saunders. 

Dr. Balfour Mount and colleagues hosted the first international conference on palliative care in North America at McGill University. It was launched as McGill’s International Congress on Care for the Terminally Ill – now the International Congress on Palliative Care. 

The Halifax palliative care service, championed by Kenneth J. MacKinnon, begins. 

The Palliative Care Foundation in Toronto, Ontario proposes a formal definition of palliative care: “Palliative care is active compassionate care of the terminally ill at a time when they’re no longer responsive to traditional treatment aimed at cure and prolongation of life and when the control of symptoms, physical and emotional is paramount. It is multidisciplinary in its approach and encompasses the patient, the family and the community in its scope.” 

Manitoba’s Jocelyn House, Canada’s first free-standing hospice, is built. 

The deans of 12 (out of 16) Canadian medical schools appointed representatives, including Dr. Balfour Mount, to a Canadian Palliative Care Curriculum Committee. 

The Canadian Palliative Care Association (now CHPCA) is established. The goal of its founding is to develop a trusted national voice for hospice palliative care in Canada. The founding members came from all over Canada to help realize this goal. During the first years of CPCA’s existence, it is led by the board as a collective. 

Founded by: 

• - Donna Roe, National Executive Director, VON Canada, Ottawa ON 
• - Paul Henteleff, Palliative Care Physician, St. Boniface Hospital, Winnipeg MB 
• - Ina Cummings, Palliative Care Physician, QEII Health Sciences Centre, Halifax NS 
• - Edna McHutcheon, Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary, AB* 
• - Denis Marcoux, Funeral Director, Winnipeg, MB* 
• - Sr. Norah O’Donnell, Elizabeth Bruyere Hospital, Ottawa, ON* 
• - Karl Benne, Senior Consultant, Health Canada*
•   

*unconfirmed

Work began on developing a set of standards for hospice palliative care, with Dr. Frank Ferris taking a leading role throughout an extensive and intensive national consultation process. 

The Canadian Palliative Care Curriculum Committee publishes the Canadian Palliative Care Curriculum which outlines specific goals and objectives for palliative care instruction in undergraduate medical teaching.

CPCA’s first Executive Director, Linda Lysne, is appointed. 

CPCA is invited to present to the newly formed Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Even with limited time and resources, the diligent work of everyone involved allows CPCA to meet the deadline. Representatives from CPCA appear before the committee, one of more than 150 such presentations by individuals and groups. 

Dr. Balfour Mount’s expression, “palliative care”, becomes a Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) and replaces Medline’s older index term “palliative treatment.” This helped to further legitimize and emphasize the differences between “care” and “treatment.” 

CPCA’s second Executive Director, Janet Dunbrack, is appointed. 

CPCA designates the first full week of May as National Palliative Care Week. Diana Fowler LeBlanc, Honorary Patron, hosts a national event at Rideau Hall to launch the first National Palliative Care Week. A highlight was the exhibit of paintings by Robert Pope titled “Illness and Healing.”  The Robert Pope Foundation later made prints of “Sparrow” from the exhibit available to members of CPCA at no charge to assist in their own public awareness efforts. 

The Quality End-of-Life Care Coalition of Canada (QELCCC), a network of 37 national organizations, is established with the belief that achieving quality end-of-life care for all Canadians requires a collaborative well-funded and sustainable national strategy for hospice palliative and end-of-life care and works together in partnership to achieve this goal.

The Senate Report Quality End-of-Life Care: The Right of Every Canadian is published, stating: “Each person is entitled to die in relative comfort, as free as possible from physical, emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual distress. Each Canadian is entitled to access skilled, compassionate, and respectful care at the end of life.” 

The report also acknowledges that only approximately 15% of Canadians who require hospice palliative care services have access to these specialized services. 

Due to the enormous success and demand for A Caregiver’s Guide, an additional print of 10,000 copies is funded by the Alberta Cancer Foundation. 

The newly renamed CHPCA also changes their logo to acknowledge their future goals while simultaneously honouring the organization’s roots. 

“The official logo of the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association is composed of three elements: a curved line and a wing evoke the previous logo of the Canadian Palliative Care Association (CPCA) and the caduceus from which it stems, while bringing freshness, modernity, lightness and movement. The base symbolizes the help and support that the CHPCA wishes to bring to the hospice palliative care community in Canada. The colours, blue for the first two elements and red for the base, were chosen to ensure continuity with the previous colours of the CPCA logo but were modified to provide greater softness and warmth.” 

“A Model to Guide Hospice Palliative Care” is published. This publication represents 10 years of extensive and intensive consultation toward the development of a national framework of hospice palliative care standards. Dr. Frank Ferris is recognized as the principal author. 

Canadians begin having access to Compassionate Care Benefits (CCB), Employment Insurance benefits paid to people who have to be away from work temporarily to provide care or support to a family member who is gravely ill and who has a significant risk of death within 26 weeks (six months). A maximum of six weeks of compassionate care benefits may be paid to eligible people. 

The Educating Future Physicians in Palliative and End-of-life Care (EFPPEC) project begins with the goal of developing national undergraduate competencies for palliative and end-of-life care. “The project was funded by Health Canada and was led by the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) in partnership with the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC), the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians (CSPCP), and the faculties of medicine at Canada’s 17 medical schools. The goal was to graduate every medical student with the knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to meet patients’ primary palliative care needs.” 

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada begins offering the Compassionate Care Benefit through the Employment Insurance program. The benefit provides 8 weeks leave (6 weeks paid) to eligible Canadians to care for a dying loved one. 

A Caregiver’s Guide receives its first national release in both English and French. In the years following, both Chinese and Inuit translations of the guide were developed in order to reach more Canadians. 

CHPCA and the Canadian Home Care Association published The Pan-Canadian Gold Standards for Palliative Home Care: Toward Equitable Access to High Quality Palliative and End-of-Life Care at Home. This document identifies the gold standard level of care and a consistent approach across the country for hospice palliative care services at home in the following areas: Case Management, Personal Care, Nursing Care and Palliative-Specific Pharmaceuticals.  

As part of the Advance Care Planning (ACP) in Canada initiative, the SpeakUp! campaign was coordinated by Louise Hanvey. The purpose of this awareness campaign was to encourage Canadians to talk about death and dying more openly and without fear. 

CHPCA’s Nurses Interest Group reviewed and approved the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Nursing Standards of Practice. Best read in conjunction with the 2008 Canadian Nurses Association’s hospice palliative care nursing competencies, both documents provide a framework for building professional hospice palliative care nursing practice and will guide discussion and policy development.

CHPCA, in partnership with the Social Work Competencies on Palliative Education Executive Committee, embarked on a project to integrate competencies for social work practice in hospice palliative care into social work undergraduate and graduate education curricula and continuing education programs. The ultimate goal is to increase the capacity of all social workers delivering psychosocial end-of-life care to patients and families to provide consistent, good quality care at the end-of-life, regardless of location and context of practice.  

House of Commons report “Not to Be Forgotten: Care of Vulnerable Canadians” is published. It addresses palliative care, suicide prevention, elder abuse, and disability issues. 

“CHPNCG is assisted by CHPCA to raise $5,000 to hold the very first facilitated face-to-face strategic planning day planned and held at CNA House in Ottawa.” 

The Canadian Compassionate Companies designation is created by CHPCA’s Champion’s Council to recognize those corporations that have formal human resource policies in place to accommodate employees who may need to take time off work to care for a loved one. To date, 20 companies have earned a CCC designation, with more to come!

Bill C-277, the “Framework on Palliative Care in Canada Act,” becomes law.  The goal of this private member bill is of making end-of-life health care better for Canadians from coast to coast. 

Health Canada publishes A Framework for Palliative Care in Canada. 

“Parliament passed revised legislation that makes important changes to who may be eligible to obtain medical assistance in dying and the process of assessment. These changes take effect immediately. The government is working with provinces and territories and with health care professionals to ensure eligible Canadians will be able to request MAID according to the new law, and that the appropriate protections are in place.”