Suffering is universal. Palliative care is not.

Palliative and end-of-life care is an important aspect of healthcare, one that many of us will need in our lifetime. Palliative care helps address the needs of people with life-limiting conditions to improve their quality of life and that of their families and caregivers. However, the availability, accessibility, and quality of palliative and end-of-life care varies greatly across Canada.

The Quality End-of-Life Care Coalition of Canada (QELCCC) is a group of approximately 30 national organizations dedicated to improving end-of-life care for people across Canada. We believe that everyone has a right to quality palliative care, including grief and bereavement supports.

We need your help to amplify our message!

During the pandemic, we have individually and collectively experienced suffering and loss, which has led to a national conversation about how people want to live their final days. We must keep the momentum going and push for governments at all levels to improve palliative and end-of-life care for all.

Help us keep the conversation going by sending a letter to your elected officials using the tool to your right.

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Dear [recipient position will go here] [recipient name will go here],

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The COVID-19 pandemic revealed to many people across Canada an unfortunate truth: suffering is universal, but palliative care is not. The availability, accessibility and quality of palliative care, including grief and bereavements supports, has long been uneven across Canada, and the pandemic has highlighted the importance of ensuring these services are available to everyone when they need them.

Many factors are contributing to our current situation. Variations in policies, strategies, frameworks and funding across provinces and territories; few providers specializing in providing this type of care; limited data on palliative care services across Canada; and the lack of a single shared definition of palliative care in Canada are only some of the challenges we face as a country in providing quality palliative care.

As a result, people across Canada have difficulty accessing palliative care, and many do not know that it is an option that can help improve their quality of life while living with an advanced or life-threatening illness or condition. While palliative care is not only for people near death, between 2016 and 2017 in Alberta and Ontario – the only two provinces where this information could be measured – only 15% of people who died received publicly funded palliative home care. Among residents who died in long-term care during that same period, only 6% had a record of receiving palliative care in the last year of life.

Clearly, Canada’s health systems are not equipped to provide quality palliative care to all who need it.

As Canada’s population ages, demand for these services will only increase. It is crucial that we act now to provide quality palliative care to people who need it, and to ensure our health systems can meet the future needs of people across Canada.

It is for these reasons that I support the Quality End-of-Life Care Coalition of Canada’s (QELCCC) calls to:

1. Establish a centralized and pan-Canadian coordination office, such as the Office of Palliative Care (OPC), as suggested by the Framework on Palliative Care in Canada, to oversee the implementation of the Framework and Action Plan on Palliative Care in Canada.

2. Earmark new annual funding to create a Palliative Care Collaborative, comprised of federal, provincial, and territorial government representatives, key health stakeholders, and patient groups, to inform the implementation of the Framework and Action Plan on Palliative Care in Canada.

3. Allocate $8.75 million in new funding over three years for palliative and end-of-life care research and knowledge translation, including grief and bereavement care. Of this, dedicate $750,000 over the three years to seed/proof-of-concept projects, without matching funds.

The federal government must implement the above recommendations to ensure everyone across Canada has access to the palliative care and grief and bereavement supports they deserve. 

We must learn from the pandemic, and the individual and collective losses many of us have experienced, to create a better path forward for every person who could benefit from palliative care and grief and bereavement supports. Doing nothing to help alleviate the pain and suffering of millions of people across Canada – now and in the future – is not an option.

Sincerely,
[your name will go here]
[your email address will go here] [your location will go here]

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