Doane House Hospice has been a fixture of the community for over 30 years while serving residents of Newmarket and York Region. Doane House Hospice programs help individuals and their family members from initial diagnosis, through treatment, recovery or advanced care planning, and grief and bereavement. Some programs offered through Doane House Hospice include:
- Caregiver support
- Mindfulness programs
- Bereavement program
- Art therapy
- 1:1 counselling
Margaret Bahen Hospice is a 10-bed residential hospice that provides 24 hours, seven days per week palliative care to individuals and their families during end-of-life. The hospice provides home-cooked meals, beautiful outdoor areas to enjoy and programs that enable families to make new memories that will last forever.
What is palliative care?
Palliative Care is an approach to care in treating an individual who has a life-threatening illness with a focus on relieving discomfort and suffering and improving quality of life. Palliative Care can include supports for an individual while they are actively undergoing treatment, after they have decided to stop medical treatments, while they are experiencing end-of-life, as well as support for their caregivers and family members through respite and grief and bereavement.
What are community and residential hospices?
There are two types of hospices: community and residential. Community hospices support individuals as they actively undergo treatment by helping to keep them informed of resources and information, providing additional therapies that may be limited due to their health issues (ex. massage therapy or reiki), offering psychosocial supports such as 1:1 consults, group sessions and art therapy that help to support the individual’s mental, emotional, social and spiritual needs.
Residential hospices offer individuals end-of-life care in a home-like environment with an attentive care team. Residential hospices offer care by trained medical professionals with the focus being on easing discomfort and supporting the individual and their family members as they move through the final stages of life.
Margaret Bahen Hospice and Doane House Hospice are charities that focus on helping individuals and families as they actively undergo treatment for a life-threatening illness, enter into end-of-life and/or experience their grief journey. All of the work that we do is made possible with the help of generous community volunteers.
Our volunteers help our hospices by volunteering in our kitchen, welcoming visitors as part of our reception team, do friendly visiting with residents, run grief or social groups for clients in the community, fundraise through personal efforts, and much more.
Volunteers at our Hospices also play key roles in helping to make special memories happen for our residents. We call these “Hospice Moments” and they are moments that help the individual and their family create memories that will last forever. They can be big, such as bringing in a horse from a local stable to visit a resident who was a long-time lover of horses, to sharing tea with a resident on their private patio in honour of a special occasion, to hosting Christmas in October. All moments are made special and unique based on what is important to the resident and their family members.
Hike for Hospice
Hospice care is an essential part of the health care system that not only offers individuals the opportunity to make choices for their end-of-life journey, but also supports family members as they transition to a new life after they have lost a loved one. It costs on average $1,000 per day for a hospital bed and in comparison, approximately $460 to operate a bed in hospice. There is no cost to our residents because of the support from donors in our community. Our hospices have to raise $750,000 of the annual budget through special events, donations and sponsorship to ensure our programs remain available for those who need them.
Hike for Hospice is a community-based fundraising event that Margaret Bahen Hospice and Doane House Hospice have participated collectively in for the past 5 years. We’re asking our community to come together with their families, friends, and colleagues to Hike for Hospice in memory or in honour of a loved one, either through a personal connection or as a general support of York Region families. This year, we have set out to raise $80,000 and we need your help to get there! You have the option of registering as an individual or create a team and involve your friends and family. Set a fundraising goal and reach out to your network for donations. On Saturday, May 13, 2023 we will be hiking for Hospice at Fairy Lake Park in Newmarket, raising essential funds for our hospices. Get involved today at https://hike-for-hospice-2023.raisely.com/.