Bed-space is at a premium in hospitals all over Vancouver Island and B.C. and it’s a problem that’s being addressed here in the Cowichan Valley.
The Cowichan Valley Hospice Society, along with the help of Island Health, is planning on bringing a hospice house to the region; the facility will provide end of life care to patients.
Executive Director of the Cowichan Valley Hospice Society, Gretchen Hartley says this facility is important to the region because it allows those at the end of their lives to die privately, with their families by their side.
Hartley says staff at the Cowichan District Hospital are very good at what they do, but the addition to Cairnsmore Place would offer services the local hospital doesn’t.
Some of the services offered at the new facility connected to Cairnsmore Place will include palliative care, pain and symptom management, and family support services.
The plans are in the schematic design phase, engineers and architects have been hired, and this phase is expected to be completed this summer.
The facility has to be operational by 2020 and more information on where the money required is coming from will be available in the coming months.
When it’s first opened, seven people will stay at the new facility connected to Cairnsmore Place.
