Article contentIn what amounts to a massive understatement, MacDonald said the building where the palliative care unit is located is “well past its prime,” having been built in 1851.Article contentTo give you a personal illustration of the ancient nature of the building, I was a patient there in 1957 in the old General Hospital, the same structure where the palliative unit is now located, to undergo a serious eye operation. I’m now 76; you do the math, as they say.Article contentAnd my mother recalled numerous times to me over the subsequent years that the building was decrepit even back then.Article contentCRUCIAL NEEDArticle contentMacDonald, whose knowledge and credibility, given her lengthy career in palliative care, has to be seen as unassailable, is suggesting that St. John’s is in “crucial need” of an independent hospice facility.Article contentCan you imagine in this day and age, especially in a province with more seniors per capita than any other province, that such alarm bells have to be even sounded?Article contentIt should be a given that the residents of this rugged and glorious land, just about all of whom would have spent a lifetime making it a better place in which to live, will ultimately have a decent and adequate facility in which to die with dignity, with the personalized care they deserve, if such a unit is their choice.Article contentArticle contentWhatever deficit the government wishes to trot out at budget time should be treated as absolutely irrelevant when this sort of vital, basic need is accentuated by the likes of Dr. MacDonald.Article content“What we need is a place that is close to home, that looks like a home, that feels like a home, that patients can come in and stay for maybe a few weeks, maybe even a couple of months if they cannot manage at home any longer,” she was quoted as saying in the piece I read.Article contentChrist Almighty, that’s not too much to ask, is it? What are we, a Third World Country?Article contentWe can blow billions on white elephants like Muskrat Falls, but we can’t afford a hospice facility. If it wasn’t so damn serious, it’d be viewed as another “Newfie joke.”Article contentSHOULD BE A PRIORITYArticle contentA final note here: perhaps such a shocking void in our already beleaguered health care system — an adequate place in which to be taken care of during your last days and hours — should be considered a priority, and just one more reason why the billions of dollars available in the potentially revamped Upper Churchill Contract, the so-called MOU, should find its way into the coffers of Newfoundland and Labrador.Article contentWe can only hope that the committee now negotiating with Quebec on that new agreement has heard Dr. MacDonald’s “desperate” call for help.Article contentThe Wakeham family members will be forever grateful that we were lucky enough to have Dad receive the type of treatment and care that he did during that last week of his life.Article contentIt should be available to all Newfoundland souls who require and desire such attention. It’s pretty basic and humane stuff. I’m sure that’s what Dad would say.Article content
Bob Wakeham: We can blow billions on white elephants like Muskrat Falls, but we cant afford a hospice facility
