COVID-19 and Hospice Palliative Care : An Overview of Emerging Issues and Recommendations
COVID-19 has certainly placed a strain on all healthcare workers including hospice palliative care providers. This strain on the hospice palliative care sector in particular is exponentially increasing due to funding, access issues, PPE, equipment and safety, vulnerable populations and research issues.
This document underlines some of the hospice palliative care key issues that were determined by the CHPCA Board representatives from each province as well as some Quality End of Life Care Coalition of Canada (QELCCC) members in light of COVID-19. Please note, some of these issues might not be pertinent to every jurisdiction, but we felt it was important to summarize them in one place. This document will be updated as we move along through this pandemic; please use it for advocacy purposes. This is the latest iteration of the document updated in November 2020.
Prepared by Sharon Baxter, Executive Director, Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) with feedback from the CHPCA Board of Directors and with feedback from Helena Sonea, Canadian Cancer Society, chair of the Quality End of Life Care Coalition of Canada Advocacy Committee; on April 6th, 2020.