Home at last

Nancy Parks, Hospice executive director announces the acquisition of a home for hospice in Picton.

Hospice Prince Edward gains strong support and achieves key milestone

Grant Reynolds understands better than most the importance of a community- based residential hospice. Nine years ago his wife was diagnosed with brain cancer. She had little more than a year to live. She defied the prognosis—for a while. The disease went into remission. Karen would survive another five years.

“We knew it wouldn’t last,” said Grant Reynolds, before the large black-tie gathering at Highline Hall on Saturday night—an evening dubbed the Autumn Leaves Gala, a fundraiser for a residential hospice in Prince Edward County. “Yet those precious years were a gift,” said Grant

Karen wanted to spend her last days in a residential hospice. She knew those days would be difficult, that care would need to be almost constant. She worried about her family— about Grant.

Grant set about finding such a residential hospice facility near their Georgetown home. He was a successful businessman in the medical equipment business, so had some resources to draw upon.

“It took me a while to figure out none were close,” said Grant.

He tried to manage Karen’s care on his own with some assistance from home care providers, but soon became overwhelmed.

“We want to believe these facilities and resources are there when we need them but the fact is that you are constantly negotiating for more care.”

Stressed to the point of breaking, he was advised to bring his wife to “emerg. They can’t turn you away,” he was told.

Eventually the phone rang and there was a room available for Karen.

Grant Reynolds had to stop speaking at this point.

It was left to Dr. Josh Colby, co-chair of the Autumn Leaves Gala, to explain that eleven days before she died, Karen finally entered the residential hospice. She had found peace.

Karen’s story provided a sombre yet poignant counterbalance to a sold-out evening in which it was announced a new three-bed hospice home could be open and providing end-of-life care by April next year in Picton.

Gala committee member Wayne Carruthers with co-chair Dr. Josh Colby.

Nancy Parks, executive director of Hospice Prince Edward, announced to the lavishly adorned room that her organization was moving forward to purchase a home on Downes Avenue in Picton that—with funding approval from the South East LHIN, and with modest renovation—could provide residential hospice beds in this community by the spring.

“It’s a place we will be able to call our own hospice,” said Parks to the cheering crowd.

Colby also announced that Hospice had recently been presented with a gift of $25,000 toward the purchase of the new facility by Bernie Farnholtz, whose wife Sheila Louise had received palliative care from the agency until her passing in 2010.

The event was truly an elegant affair. Guests were received through the arena lobby and guided into the Rotary Hall where an extravagant bounty of wine, vacations, art and themed packages (such as camping gear, handyman tools, outdoor entertaining) were tastefully presented around the room, tempting bidders.

In the Highline Hall, a live chamber trio set a lush tone for the night of celebration. Later the tuxedo jackets came off and the gathering eased into an evening of dancing and music to the Reasons. Shimmering ghostlike leaves crafted from metal screening hung over each sumptuously decorated table.

Wayne Carruthers coordinated more than 30 volunteers in a full day of decorating and preparing the hall. He managed thousands of details, as Colby would note to the gathering, “making everything perfect.”

And it was.