This month the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) is calling on the government to make hospice palliative care a priority with its month-long campaign running from October 8 – November 10.
“Hospice Palliative Care FIRST: A Month of Action” hopes to encourage Canadians to advocate for quality hospice palliative care at their local, regional and national levels. Acting as champions for end-of-life care in Canada, the CHPCA asks Canadians to speak out to the media, write, call or meet with provincial and federal representatives, and to share and promote resources from the National Hospice Palliative Care Week 2016 and Speak Up: Advance Care Planning (ACP) campaigns.
With Health Accord negotiations ongoing throughout this fall, the CHPCA will highlight a different theme each week including International and Children’s HPC, Advance Care Planning, What is HPC and a Call to Action. The CHPCA is calling on federal and provincial leadership to make palliative care access a right for all Canadians in the next 10-year accord, ensuring the support and care that chronically ill and aging Canadians need.
“Canadians need to have some of the myths around hospice palliative care dispelled,” said Sharon Baxter, Executive Director of the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association. “Hospice Palliative Care is not just something we need to think about in the last two weeks of life. As our population ages, as our health needs become more complex and our financial resources become tighter, we need to have this national conversation.”
CHPCA has bilingual resources including ways that people can get involved and make difference, a “myth-buster” poster with facts about hospice palliative care, and an F.A.Q. poster for physicians about hospice palliative care.
Check out all of CHPCA’s resources at https://www.chpca.ca/campaigns/ for all the ways you can become a Hospice Palliative Care Champion and help bring about real change.
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For more information, please contact:
Sarah Levesque
Communications Officer
Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association
1-800-668-2785 Ext. 229
[email protected]
The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association — the national voice for hospice palliative care in Canada – is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in care for persons approaching death so that the burdens of suffering, loneliness and grief are lessened. The CHPCA operates in close partnership with other national organizations and continues to work to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of where they may live, have equal access to quality hospice palliative care services for themselves and their family.