A local group is thinking outside the box – literally.
The Airdrie and District Hospice Society is taking the bricks and mortar out of end-of-life care and proposing a community solution to the sometimes-insurmountable problems related to caring for a loved one with a terminal illness (see page five for the full story).
What if caring for a dying loved one was less about pain management and medicine and more about the community coming together to help the family and caregivers?
Often times, when caring for a sick loved one, it is not the “care” that is challenging but keeping up with the other aspects of life.
When you are trying to spend every minute you have left with your family, things like laundry, dishes, mowing the lawn and walking the dog are moved to the back burner.
What if there was an organization that co-ordinated volunteers and sent them to shovel walks, go grocery shopping or just keep someone company? It has been proven that patients in community situations are generally healthier and live longer than those in institutions.
Other communities have worked with Alberta Health Services, raised money and built traditional hospice facilities, only to have them filled with people on waiting lists in Calgary.
The Airdrie solution to helping people live before they die strives to be more effective and the Society is pioneering a new method of palliative care that focuses on neighbours helping neighbours.
The end-of-life care will be provided from the community for the community and the members of the Airdrie and District Hospice Society realize that the solution must come by grassroots participation.
That is why they are conducting a community needs assessment and asking residents to share their experiences.
We encourage any resident who is dealing with a life-limiting illness as a patient, loved one or caregiver, to contact the Society and share their experience.
If the Society can identify common themes and needs of life-limiting illness within the community, it can find ways to address them.
It is about the community coming together and people helping neighbours.
Our busy lives have made us a generally selfish bunch, who don’t often look past out families. We run from work to school to pick up our kids to soccer practice to fast food restaurants and home again.
What if we took the time to see that our neighbour needs help? What if we went over to visit on a Sunday and picked up their grocery list and added it to our own?
What if we shovelled our neighbours walk as well as our own?
Like Dr. Martin LaBrie with the Society said, it doesn’t take a big effort on the part of one person but many small efforts by many people.
Kudos to the Society for reminding us that helping each other out can make the community a better place to live...and die.
