In the new year, the Shuswap Hospice Society will be asking people to share their experiences with palliative care to help better meet the needs of the community. 

Starting January, the Shuswap Hospice Society (SHS) will be launching HOPES (Helping to Optimize Palliative Care Experience in the Shuswap), a project that will involve a number of open house meetings where participants will be welcomed to share their stories. 

"We want to hear from you about the care you and your family received along this difficult journey," explains the SHS media release. Those share stories will help SHS determine where changes are needed, and "will drive the direction of the Society鈥檚 activities as we go forward to achieve excellence in end-of-life care."

Carolyn Iker, president of the society's board of trustees, explained HOPES aligns with SHS' commitment to support "the rights of all persons to receive consistent physical, emotional and spiritual care that maintains individuality and dignity while facing life-limiting illness and bereavement," at a time when healthcare services are "stretched to the max." Iker offered an example of how this has directly impacted palliative care at Shuswap Lake General Hospital, explaining there have been times when its designated (not dedicated) hospice beds have been required for other hospital patients.

"So we may have somebody in an acute illness who, if that鈥檚 the last bed, they may be put into the hospice bed, which means someone who is dying is dying in an acute care bed, or in emergency, or at home in less than optimal circumstances," said Iker. "We want help to find ways to provide services that are going to help mitigate some of these issues, and work with Interior Health in the process.

"So we thought the best way to do that would be to get a large group of community volunteers together, start going out to the community and ask them, when they鈥檝e had the loss of a loved one and were intimately involved in end of life care, what has worked, what hasn鈥檛 worked, what would they like to see different? So we can actually make sure we aren鈥檛 telling the Shuswap what services we should offer; they will be telling us what they would like to see."

Dates and times for the HOPES meetings will be announced in local news media and on social media. 

For further information contact the Hospice Society at hopes@shuswaphospice.ca