The Power of 10: Let’s talk about Hospice Palliative Care
National Hospice Palliative Care Week
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(April 9, 2015, Ottawa, ON) – One of the best ways to spread a message is by turning to your own social
circles. This year’s National Hospice Palliative Care Week campaign, which runs May 3rd to 9th, is titled
“The Power of 10: Let’s talk about Hospice Palliative Care” and encompasses the idea of using our social
circles to spread the message on the importance of quality hospice palliative care in our country.
The principles underlining this year’s campaign are simple – everyone is part of a sphere of influence that
includes family, friends and acquaintances. Similarly, all individuals within your sphere of influence are
connected to their own social circles.
Through these spheres of influence you have the potential to reach a vast network of individuals.
“This year, we are urging people to spread the message by sharing our National Hospice Palliative Care
Week resources and speaking to ten people – friends, family, acquaintances – about the importance of
quality hospice palliative care in Canada,” said Sharon Baxter, Executive Director of the Canadian
Hospice Palliative Care Association. “We are then asking you to ask those ten people to speak to ten
people and so forth.”
The hope is that this critical message will be spread exponentially, like ripples in a pond, by each of your
contacts – whether face-to-face, e-mail or social media using the National Hospice Palliative Care Week
resources as conversation starters.
For this year’s campaign, the CHPCA has released a bilingual poster featuring answers to the most
common questions surrounding hospice palliative care including “what does receiving it mean,” “how it
applies to families,” and “what is the difference hospice palliative care can make.” The campaign also
includes smaller bilingual postcards that can be easily handed out.
“We are hoping for an increase in general knowledge and awareness concerning hospice palliative care by
having these resources spread throughout communities across Canada.”
The resources can be utilized by both professionals working in the healthcare field as well as patients, and
caregivers to advocate for systemic change.
According to the National Fact Sheet by the CHPCA, hospice palliative care programs allow patients to
gain more control over their lives, manage pain and symptoms more effectively, and they provide support
to family caregivers.a
It also states that there growing evidence that access to hospice palliative care combined with treatment,
leads to an improvement in symptoms, better quality of life, higher patient satisfaction and overall better
outcomes for individuals and their family caregivers.b
National Hospice Palliative Care Week is coordinated by the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care
Association. Funding for National Hospice Palliative Care Week is provided by Purdue and
GlaxoSmithKline. For more information, and promotional materials for National Hospice Palliative Care
Week, please go to www.chpca-acsp.org/week.
- 30 For more information, please contact:
Tamir Virani
Communications Officer
Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association
1-800-668-2785 Ext. 229
[email protected]
The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association -- the national voice for hospice palliative care in
Canada – is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in care for persons approaching death so that the
burdens of suffering, loneliness and grief are lessened. The CHPCA operates in close partnership with
other national organizations and continues to work to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of where they
may live, have equal access to quality hospice palliative care services for themselves and their family.
a
Informal Caregivers are family members, loved ones, or friends and neighbours who provide support or care for the dying
family member, loved one, or friend. A Model to Guide Hospice Palliative Care: Based on National Principles and Norms of
Practice (CHPCA, 2002) defines Informal Caregivers as, “not members of an organization. They have no formal training, and are
not accountable to standards of conduct or practice. They may be family members or friends.”
b
Smith TJ, Temin S, Erin R, et al. American Society of Clinical Oncology Provisional Clinical Opinion: The Integration of
Palliative Care into Standard Oncology Care. Feb 26, 2012. Accessed from www.asco.org. March 2012.