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Downtown Eastside hospice offers extra care

Natural light from skylights and more than a dozen leafy plants make May’s Place warm and welcoming.
Simonne LeBlanc
May’s Place has been providing the Downtown Eastside community with end-of-life care for 25 years. Left to right: Simonne LeBlanc, registered nurse, Cielo Nacpil, clinical care coordinator, and Molly-Ann Barkley, care aid. Photo Wanyee Li

Natural light from skylights and more than a dozen leafy plants make May’s Place warm and welcoming.

The nurses and care aids at May’s Place have been providing end of life care for the Downtown Eastside community for almost 25 years, a milestone worth considering as Canadian health care providers reflect on National Hospice Palliative Care Week until May 10.

“I’ve been proposed to three times during my time here,” laughed Cielo Nacpil. She started as a registered nurse at the hospice 12 years ago and is now the clinical care coordinator at the Downtown Eastside’s only hospice.

Care workers in hospices need to consider ethical issues on an everyday basis, but things get more complicated when you’re caring for someone who has a drug addiction. Cielo says that May’s Place focuses on harm reduction.

“We say to the patient, it’s not allowed on the premises to do illegal drugs. But what they do outside of the hospice is their own business. As long as you’re respectful to the staff and other patients, we’re OK with that,” she said.

There is a needle disposal box in each of the six single-bed rooms at the hospice.  

Nacpil calls her and her colleagues’ work “hospice plus.”

“We don’t provide only hospice care, we also deal with the mental illness and addiction, abuse issues, poverty, homelessness,” she said.

Sixty-four year old Kathy Moss was born and raised in Vancouver and has lived in the Downtown Eastside for over 40 years. She thinks that a hospice like May’s Place is necessary in the neighbourhood.

“In this area I think it’s good because a lot of people are either homeless or they have no money. There are so many different issues when you have drug-related problems,” she said.

May’s Place has also had to adjust to the changing needs of the community. Ten years ago, Nacpil saw many HIV AIDS patients at the hospice.

Thanks to the improvements of HIV treatments, that has changed. Nacpil says the majority of patients now have cancer-related problems.

The society that runs May’s Place believes that there is still more to be done in regarding palliative care. “We don’t believe that everyone has access to palliative care. Part of the issue is understanding who is excluded and how we can help them,” said Jonathan Oldman, executive director of The Bloom Group. He added, “hospice care needs to be available to all communities no matter what their circumstances are.”

May’s Place and The Bloom Group’s other hospice, Cottage Hospice, receive operational funding from Vancouver Coastal Health, but 20 per cent of their costs are covered by private donations. According to Oldman, much of the $350,000 comes from families who’ve had a loved one spend time at the hospice.

Earning the trust of patients is the most rewarding part of the job for Nacpil. “It’s very hard for some of the patients to trust people,” said Nacpil. “We get the greatest satisfaction when we earn the trust of the patients.”

Note: This story has been corrected since it was posted. 

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