{"id":18309,"date":"2017-09-13T15:40:46","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T19:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18309"},"modified":"2017-09-21T12:11:19","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T16:11:19","slug":"hope-springs-for-hospice-king-aurora-richmond-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hope-springs-for-hospice-king-aurora-richmond-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"“Hope” springs for Hospice King-Aurora-Richmond Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n

Hospice King-Aurora-Richmond Hill turned a hopeful page towards its future this week, unveiling its new name: Hope House Hospice.
\nFor over 35 years, the name Hospice King-Aurora \u2013 and, following a recent expansion, known as Hospice King-Aurora-Richmond Hill \u2013 has become synonymous with end of life care for individuals across all three communities. Over those decades, however, the concept of hospice care has evolved along with our communities and, for Executive Director Heidi Bonner, the time to turn that page came on Monday at the organization\u2019s AGM in Aurora.
\n\u201cThe idea for \u2018Hope House\u2019 came at our 2015 AGM,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe had Debbie Homewood, who is one of the facilitators in our group, who came and spoke about spirituality and hope in hospice care and the idea of hope seemed really weird [in this context]. But the idea that hope keeps getting redefined along your journey really struck a chord with everyone present.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re not necessarily hoping you\u2019ll live forever, but hoping you\u2019ll live long enough to see your granddaughter born, live long enough to have a Dairy Queen sundae. You always have hope, but it changes, even if you are hoping for a pain free death.\u201d
\nIndeed, hope has always been an undercurrent at Hospice, regardless of its moniker. Illustrating her point, Ms. Bonner points to a plaque hanging well above normal sightlines, an otherwise unnoticed decorative accent, emblazoned with that evocative four-letter word.
\nIt was there when they were operating on King Road, it is currently there in their Industrial Parkway South headquarters, and it is there to stay, presiding over the organization\u2019s latest chapter.
\nIt\u2019s a chapter that begins as hospice care experiences considerable growth in all quarters.
\nOver the last few years, there has been an increased value placed by the Province of Ontario on Hospice Care, Ms. Bonner says. Funding for community and residential hospices has increased, recognizing that as the population ages the need is only going to grow and hospice care, in general, is an \u201ceconomical\u201d way of tackling a growing concern.
\n\u201cHospices in general are a very economical way of supporting people,\u201d she says. \u201cWhether that hospice care is in the home, which is what community hospices like us do, or in the residential setting, from a purely numbers perspective it is significantly less to care for somebody in their home or residential hospice than in a hospital.\u201d
\nAnother factor in the mix is the increased prevalence of medical assistance in dying within our national conversation has brought the very concept of \u201cdying\u201d out of dark corners and hushed tones and into a regular part of our dialogue.
\n\u201c[This conversation] helps us think about what we would like in our last days,\u201d says Ms. Bonner. \u201cHospice palliative care has been there all along, but I think it is really coming into the forefront and people are demanding quality hospice and palliative care. We have been here for almost 35 years doing what we do, we have seen lots of changes and I think recently a lot of changes for good.
\n\u201cCommunity hospices like us care for people: we provide service for people right from the time of diagnosis, so the people we care for are not necessarily palliative or end of life. We really get in there to support them and their family members early on to help them through their journey. It could be through treatment and remission and off they go.\u201d
\nNow, however, there is also increased recognition towards the needs of the caregiver. The importance of providing important supports to caregivers is also a trend being recognized by the Province, who have put more money towards caregiver support.
\n\u201cIt is about getting in there early to help caregivers cope with a loved one who is ill and providing different supports,\u201d says Ms. Bonner, noting the increasing participation in their bereavement support programs as well.
\nAs much as awareness grows on the services places like the newly-minted Hope House Hospice provide, there are still nagging misconceptions out there.
\nStaff, volunteers and clients actively put out a \u201cconstant education stream\u201d that helps knock these misconceptions down, primarily when it comes to the \u201cBig D\u201d word.
\n\u201cHospices are perceived as dying, end of life care and a place where there\u2019s beds, but there is a lot more to it and everybody who learns about us and connects with us gets that message,\u201d says Ms. Bonner. \u201cIt really is care from the time of diagnosis and it doesn\u2019t mean end of life for us. For our residential hospices, it definitely is that end-of-life piece. We are sort of that front end of care. It is one of the reasons too why we\u2019re looking at the name change.
\n\u201cOur care for non-palliative care clients is growing and that name \u2018hospice\u2019 scared people. Their first reaction would be, \u2018I\u2019m not dying, why do we need hospice?\u2019 We want to highlight that we are about living and about living life to the fullest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope House Hospice is one of six organizations who are joining forces this year under the Better Living Health & Community Services banner, which is a community partner in this week\u2019s Wild, Wild West Hoedown, hosted by Magna International.
\nBetter Living\u2019s network of hospices work together to provide hospice palliative care and support clients, families and caregivers throughout York Region.<\/p>\n

Their share of the Hoedown proceeds will go towards expansion at Hope House; programming, caregiver and bereavement support at Doane House Hospice; the new residential hospice at Hospice Vaughan; as well as the Margaret Bahen Hospice for York Region located at Southlake Regional Health Centre.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 35 years serving our community, Hospice moves forward as “Hope House”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/2017-09-14-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4Lj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-23 15:16:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}