The Prince George Hospice Society has made a revision to its name to properly represent the full range of work the organization does.
The new name has become: Prince George Hospice Palliative Care Society and was officially updated on September 22, at the Society’s Annual General Meeting, where the Board voted unanimously to make the change.
According to Executive Director Donna Flood, this change reflects the expansion of services provided within the last five years.
“Over the last five years, we’ve really expanded more into the community offering support to people that are early in their journey. They may not even be dying but they’ve got maybe a critical illness that they need support or their family or their caregivers do,” said Flood.
According to Flood, the term “hospice” is a little bit stigmatized so many believe it strictly means “dying” or “end of life” whereas palliative care refers to the whole journey of illness.
The organization offers a range of support services such as the COVID-19 survivor support group that meets weekly.
“When we did our announcement that we were doing this service, the immediate reaction was ‘why is Hospice doing this?’ and then we realized that we have entered more into the palliative care and so we need our name to reflect that,” she explained.
Flood says the COVID-19 survivor group has been invaluable to attendees and is held weekly so survivors can discuss the long-term physical and psychological effects the virus has had on them.
As part of their palliative care programs, the organization also offers a range of grief support programs.
“One of our important ones is our caregiver programs for somebody who is caring for someone at home with a life-ending illness that are again, meeting up with other people who are experiencing the same things and supporting each other,” she stated.
The caregiver support group meets every Thursday at 1:00 pm.
Programs are also available for children dealing with grief and for parents of children dealing with grief.