New hospice centre proposed for regional stage
By Timothy Schafer
A proposed residential hospice service based in Castlegar is gathering steam at the regional level, and it aims to serve people from across the West Kootenay.
The Castlegar Hospice Society has requested support from the Regional District of Central Kootenay board of directors for a $3.6-million, 10-bed residential hospice facility to serve the entire Kootenay Boundary region.
The society’s executive director, Suzanne Lehbauer, and Roger Simmons spoke to the RDCK board at their Aug. 20 regular board meeting on the possibility of establishing a regional hospice centre in Castlegar.
Lehbauer said the decision to put a regional facility in Castlegar was an obvious one.
“It only made sense to have it serve the region rather than just one community,” she said, since the need for hospice care was region wide.
Columbia Basin Trust gave initial funding to have a business plan done and the society brought in Simmons as a consultant.
Hospice care is a specialized care designed to provide support to people during an advanced illness. Hospice care is unique to health care in that it focuses on comfort and quality of life, rather than cure.
The goal of hospice care is to enable people to have an alert, pain-free life, and to live each day as fully as possible.
“A well-run residential hospice provides compassionate and cost-effective care for patients and loved ones,” said Lehbauer.
Although an RDCK board decision is forthcoming — the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary board voted to back the initiative in June — the society has a commitment from Castlegar city council in the form of land valued at $241,800.
Lehbauer said the facility would serve approximately 150 patients per year. And, with hospice beds costing only $300 per day, compared to almost $1,000 per day for a similar bed in a hospital, the centre would save the health authority financially in the long run.
The need is there for hospice beds. The nearest residential hospice facility is in the Okanagan, said Lehbauer, and more than 500 palliative people — those with a serious illness — die from a palliative illness locally each year, with over 300 of them in acute care beds in the region’s hospitals.
In all, there are eight acute care beds in the region — two each in Castlegar, Grand Forks, Nelson and Trail — but are only there on an “if available” basis.
Lehbauer said hospice will also reduce wait times for up to 600 elective surgery patients and provide non-palliative patients with pain and symptom management.
She said the centre would function as a site for clinical placements and learning experiences for Selkirk College students enrolled in nursing degree, health-care assistant and human services programs.
The society will be approaching local funding agents — such as the Columbia Basin Trust, Teck Operations, Zellstoff Celgar and non-governmental granting agencies — to source seed money.
