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| Anne Falvo and Susan Crowley from the Prince Rupert Hospice Society provided a presentation to City Council on Monday evening |
Two representatives from the Prince Rupert Hospice Society took advantage of a Committee of the Whole opportunity on Monday evening to outline some background to their work in the community, as well as to make a call for more volunteers to help with their efforts.
Anne Falvo and Susan Crowley provided for a short update, taking Council members and those viewing from home through some of their programs and some of the focus of their work.
The President if the Society, Ms. Falvo opened their presentation by noting of the services that they offer and their work on grief sessions in the community.
"We also have a monthly drop in for a grief support group, as well as a more lengthy grief group session which tend to last between eight to ten weeks"
Towards those initiatives the next Drop in program at the Library takes place on April 15th at and the larger Grief Group session of eight to ten weeks, starts in April and run until June.
Ms. Falvo also observed of their ongoing work in recruiting new members.
"We are always seeking volunteer members and we will be having Hospice training starting via Zoom from Terrace in May"
Ms. Crowley's focus for the night was to expand on the Hospice Society's long term care program, she spoke to their Advance Care Planning week request that they put in previous which will take place.
"We had a pretty good talk last time about what Advance Care Planning is and you have a good understanding. It's about helping people make decisions about what they want, while they can still make decisions. Talking to somebody about it is great. But writing it down is really really important as well" -- Prince Rupert Hospice VP, Susan Crowley
She noted of some upcoming events at the Credit Union and Seniors Centres.
Ms. Crowley also noted of some of the challenges that they have found when it comes to taking their program to the public.
"Our numbers are down, for a number of reasons. People themselves are nervous about having somebody in to to talk with them, they're nervous say about coming to the Seniors Centre or to the hospital to our area to talk to us. And rightfully so.
So our numbers are not what they once were. And so we really, just really want the word to spread about Advanced Care Planning and how we are here to help with that"
She also observed as to some of the unfilled positions in the community that have not been tended to since COVID.
"We work often with Community Paramedic, we don't have a Community Paramedic at the moment.
We work with the coordinator at the Senior Centre and we don't have a coordinator at the Senior Centre at the moment.
So all of these things, are just I think little indications of how things are just starting to come back in Prince Rupert" -- Prince Rupert Hospice VP, Susan Crowley
Council members only had a few questions for the pair from the Hospice Centre, Councillor Forster taking the lead noting of the importance of their programs sharing her own experiences and her own work towards Advance Care Planning.
"I really think that having that conversation as a family, it really breaks down that barrier, It's not just for great, great Grandma to have that conversation. It needs to be spread out a lot more and to normalizing that, so thank you very much for all the work you do"
A reply to a question on their volunteer base from Councillor Randhawa provided an opportunity to outline their current status and why there has been a decline.
"Our numbers are down I would say by about 40 or 50 percent.
For example, the masking was a problem and continues to be a problem and a lot of our people would be in one of the health care facilities where we still have masking regulations to a certain extent.
And the whole idea that you had to have a test done and get it checked before; the person that was checking your test left at 5 o'clock and not on weekends. Those kind of things were hard on us. So we're down considerably" -- Prince Rupert Hospice VP, Susan Crowley
Councillor Cunningham also noted of his experience with their programs and observed as to how he would assist them in getting together with the Senior's Centre.
As they wrapped up their presentation, the Hospice Centre representatives took up the invitation to provide a short tutorial on the Green Sleeves program
"Green sleeves is something that is here, I believe that is connected to better at home ... and they have taken on having a little plastic folder that is green in your house, very, very noticeable, maybe on the fridge or somewhere like that.
And in it is one sheet of paper that has all your health information on it basically.
It ends where advanced care planning begins ... I think the community paramedics I think really pushed it, because they know then, right away when they're at a house they just have to open that and they don't have to ask anybody any information really in a time of crisis, everything is there on that sheet of paper.
Where Green Sleeves is just folded up, on a magnet and where they end, advance care planning begins and says right there on Green Sleeves make sure you have an Advanced Care Plan which gives a lot more detail"
You can review their full presentation to Council from the City's Video archive, their contribution to the night comes at the start of the Committee of the Whole Session.
You can learn more about the Prince Rupert Hospice Society and their programs from their website and social media stream.
For a look at more notes from the Monday City Council Session see our archive page here.
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