Story Posted: 2024-07-16
Hospital Highlights 2023-24: Hospice at Glengarda
From the St. Paul’s Hospital & SPH Foundation 2023-24 Annual Review.
The Hospice at Glengarda provides patient-centered, responsive end-of-life care and support, offering each patient and their loved ones the opportunity to live life fully throughout the time that they are with us. We take pride in exceptional teamwork and use an interdisciplinary approach that focuses on holistic patient-centered care.
This year, we welcomed Robin Stahl into the Site Lead Position, and Kristin Hubic as Manager of Patient and Family Relations. We worked to further our collaboration with Community and Acute Care to ensure patients are referred to Glengarda without delay, and receive the support they need at all steps of their palliative journey. We also continued to develop and strengthen our relationships with the community by providing educational opportunities and welcoming nursing students to complete their final practicums at our Hospice. The presence of nursing students at Glengarda has improved the students’ awareness of the important work we do, supported inclusion of the palliative care and end-of-life care approaches into nursing curricula, and created learning opportunities for our staff as they learn about new advances in health care from the students.
We were pleased to host Accreditation Canada for completion of a Supplementary Survey of the Hospice in October 2023. We successfully met each standard, demonstrating our commitment to providing safe, high-quality health services. Community donations through St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation supported Hospice staff through the Palliative Care Education Fund, which helps staff access training and education such as the LEAP™ Core Training offered in 2023.
Thanks to the continued and generous support of our community through SPH Foundation, our Holistic Care Team provides individual programming for patients and their families, offering whatever patients might wish for during their time at the Hospice. Date nights, movie nights in the Multi-Faith Room and a spa outing are just a few examples of experiences the Team facilitated this year. We have also expanded our Life Enhancement and Music Therapy offerings, including incorporating a coffee cart into the mix while offering music and interactive games to patients and their families. Through Creative Arts we have put together an Art Activity Cart, designed for patients and families to access each day and filled with supplies like paints, clay, canvas, and drawing paper. We have also improved upon our Celebration of Life events based on patient and family feedback and new ideas put forward by the Team; we will now host the events four times a year and provide crystal dragonflies to families to celebrate their loved one.
Donor Contributions Change the Landscape of End-of-Life Care
The Hospice at Glengarda was built by the generosity of donors through their support of the “Close to Home” campaign, and our donor community continues to ensure that all experiences and activities offered at the Hospice remain free of charge to patients and their loved ones. We are deeply grateful to the Knights of Columbus who began sponsoring our Hospitality Cart in 2024, ensuring that visitors have access to snacks and sundry items as needed. Our wonderful donors also ensure that flowers and food remain a part of our “Celebration of Life” events, that Christmas décor adorns the Hospice in December, and that we can purchase comfort and recreation items like a free-standing popcorn-maker for group events.
Through our community-supported Comfort Care Fund, the back entrance to the Hospice has been re-imagined. When patients arrive via ambulance, they are welcomed by a nature scene and floating candles, setting the tone for the compassionate and holistic space they are entering. The front lower patio was also completed this past summer, with a calming firepit area surrounded by thoughtfully planned landscaping and design. The new patio space includes a medicine wheel, and serves as an extension of the adjacent indoor multi-faith room.