SASKATOON EXPRESS - Aprilof 20-26, 2015 - Page Volume 12, Issue 16, Week April 20, 20151
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
Carol Janzen is grateful for the weekly visit she receives from a Prairie Hospice Society volunteer (Photo by Sandy Hutchinson)
In a better place
Residential hospice needed in city, group says
Cam Hutchinson Saskatoon Express hen it’s Carol Janzen’s time to die, she would prefer not having to spend her final days in a care home or a palliative care unit in a hospital. That is unlikely, though. Janzen survived breast cancer in the late 1990s. She was diagnosed with cancerous tumours in both of her lungs about five years ago. The tumours are now growing. She had a heart attack in January. “I’m doing not too bad,” she said with a smile. “I’m holding my own. And that’s OK. I’ll take that.” Janzen receives a weekly visit from a volunteer with the Prairie Hospice Society, a non-profit group committed to enhancing the quality of life for those facing advancing illness, death and bereavement. Prairie Hospice is currently seeking more volunteers, with a training session set for May-June. While the four-hour weekly visits are well received, there is a much bigger picture, said Barbara Jiricka, a Prairie Hospice Society board member. She said Saskatoon is behind the times when it comes to providing end-of-life
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services. There is a need for a residential hospice for those in their final days, she added. “The options for people at end of life are the hospital — if they can’t live at home with the support that is available — or long-term care,” said Jiricka. Jiricka has a background in nursing and palliative care. She was the director of nursing at St. Paul’s Hospital when the palliative care unit was built. “What we are hoping to accomplish is to give people other options for living their life as opposed to the hospital, the emergency department or long-term care,” she said. “We’re saying living in the community, living in your own home, is a possibility. It is happening across Canada, but people need support. And as they gradually get to the point where they need a little bit more support, those kinds of things have to be available to them.” Janzen is not sure what the future will bring in terms of her health care. “I want to stay out of a seniors’ place for as long as I can hold out. I know it will likely go to that eventually. There are a lot of times when you lose your energy. Sometimes just to get up and get dressed
can be an effort and getting in and out of the bathtub — just little things like that.” Janzen doesn’t have a support network in her home. Her husband, Gordon, died in 2006. Her son, Miles, lives in Calgary. She has discouraged him from moving back to Saskatoon. “As long as I can enjoy the way the world is right now, I’ll take it,” she said. Jiricka said the Supreme Court decision to strike down as unconstitutional Canada’s law against assisted suicide should be part of the discussion when it comes to end-of-life services. The court ruling opened the door for physician-assisted suicide for severely ill adults who want to control the timing of their death. “We don’t want to get into the philosophy, but I think in terms of assisted suicide, people need to see there are other options in terms of how they live out their lives. They shouldn’t be put in a situation where they feel they have to choose. If you only read the paper, you don’t know what other things are out there because nobody goes looking for it unless you need help.” Jiricka said more can be done for people as they approach the end of their
lives. She cited examples of 30-year-old mothers with breast cancer. “Because their symptoms were being managed, they don’t qualify for palliative care. They were moved to long-term care, which is not an appropriate setting for people, certainly at that age, and to have children visiting and it disturbs the other residents. It is just not an ideal setting. We know there is a need for a physical facility.” Janzen looks forward to her weekly visit from her Prairie Hospice volunteer, Donna Fracchia. She said the visits help her combat loneliness. “Even once a week is a long week when you don’t go anywhere — when you just sit and look out. When I was first diagnosed, there were times when I thought the world had fallen off its axis because I saw and heard from nobody.” Janzen was especially grateful when Fracchia came to her house on the day she became ill, and was later diagnosed with having a heart attack. Fracchia had a premonition that something was wrong with somebody in her life. She took Janzen to the hospital and stayed until her heart procedure was completed. (Continued on page 4)