Hospice Halifax announces plans for city's first hospice

Halifax's first residential care hospice will soon be nestled along a tree-lined street and among expensive homes near Point Pleasant Park in the city's south end.

Dr. Robert Horton, a palliative care doctor and board member of Hospice Halifax the group behind the plans says the facility should open in 2017.

"It means more than anything that people are going to have a choice other than resorting to going to the hospital at the end of their life when they can no longer manage their symptoms at home, in the community, with the supports that are currently in place," he said.

Hospice Halifax has secured two buildings, located at 618 and 620 Francklyn Street on the campus of the Atlantic School of Theology. The buildings will be extensively renovated and joined together to create a 10-bed, two-storey hospice that will also include family and children's rooms.

Horton says Halifax is one of the last major cities in Canada without a residential hospice.

A 'peaceful and tranquil' setting

Research indicates the majority of people would prefer to die at home. While resources are in place to help them do this, it may not be a possibility for some because of the level of care they require or changes in their medication.

"Eighty per cent of us want to die at home and only 20 per cent of us are actually able to," said Wendy Fraser, the CEO of Hospice Halifax.

She said most people would like to die somewhere that has a more home-like setting.

"This gives them the opportunity to be in a setting that is peaceful and tranquil and have all their needs met while they can really spend that precious time with their family," said Fraser.

Horton says hospitals are not the ideal environment for people to die.

"It can be noisy. It can be lacking in privacy," he said.

Hospice Halifax will soon launch a $4-million campaign to finance the renovations.

'They've been very receptive'

Once it's up and running, the plan is for the facility to split operating costs with the province. The hospice would raise money to pay for its half.

Horton says talks with the province regarding the 50-50 funding model have been well received.

"They've been very receptive of that," he said.

Hospices, he says, make sense from both a financial and moral perspective. On the financial side, the cost to provide care in a hospice works out to about $475 per day, compared to more than $1,000 in an acute-care setting, he says.

"Regardless of the cost savings, this is actually more appropriate care and it's care that's more consistent with the kind of environment and kind of care that patients and families say that they want at the end of their life," said Horton.