Hospice Wellington is getting an annual $150,000 funding boost as part of a $13.9 million investment by the Province of Ontario in hospice services. The money is the first step towards fulfilling a budgetary commitment to invest $75 million over three years in the area of community-based palliative and end-of-life care.
Guelph MPP and Ontario Minister of Education Liz Sandals made the announcement at Hospice Wellington Friday morning on behalf of Health Minister Eric Hoskins.
The money for Hospice Wellington, the agency’s executive director Todd Fraleigh said, will enable a higher level of care in the 10-bed facility, while freeing up other funds for community-based programs.
“We can do a lot with that funding,” Fraleigh said in an interview. “We are going to invest some of that money into more nursing, because we are dealing with more complex cases, and more individuals, given the demographics we are seeing. We need to invest in more care provision.”
Since Hospice Wellington is not fully funded by the province, the organization must raise money in the community for its programs, he explained. Thanks to the new money, more of the community-raised funds can be diverted into community-based hospice services, Fraleigh said.
“So we will be investing directly into the residence, and we will also be allowing some of our extra fund-raising to be diverted into the community as well,” he said. “So this makes a huge difference to what we can do.”
Sandals said the funding is directed towards a number of areas of palliative and end-of-life care, and will help to strengthen the hospice sector.
“Part of that funding is for the hospice beds that already exist,” she said. “Part of the money - $13.9 million over three years – is actually going to the existing hospice beds to increment the funding for them.”
The additional funding for hospice beds, she added, amounts to a $15,000 increase per bed. The current funding for those beds is $90,000. With the new funding, that will increase to $105,000, a roughly 16.5 per cent increase per bed.
“That means the new total for funding of hospice beds here at Hospice Wellington will be $1,050,000 for the 10 beds,” she said, adding that the agency will have additional security in its funding.
“Hospice Wellington provides such a different setting from a hospital bed or a long-term care bed,” Sandals said during the announcement. “As you all know, the atmosphere upstairs is so much more homelike, so much more comfortable, so much more inviting for the families that are coming in to provide care. It’s just a wonderful setting to support the patient and the family.”
On the practical, cost side of the equation, she said hospice care costs significantly less than hospital care – $460 per day for hospice, compared to $1,100 per day for hospital care.
“So this is also a model that really makes financial sense as well as patient care sense,” she added.
The new money is part of the Government of Ontario’s Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care, which is geared towards ensuring faster access to the right care, better home and community care, and a sustainable system well into the future, according to a press release.
