Welcome
The Palliative Care Society of the Bow Valley is a community-focused, volunteer-led, charitable non-profit that helps improve the experience for individuals and their families who call the Bow Valley home and who are on the journey with life-limiting illness.
Our goal is to build a rural residential hospice in the Bow Valley for our residents. We are working hard to have this built within the next few years.
We are here to help you plan for your terminal illness and to work through a life-limiting illness diagnosis. Be it to navigate loss and grief, to understand the complexities of palliative care in our health care system, you are not alone, and support is available.
The PCSBV is here to be that support.
ANNUAL THEME:
The 2022 Annual Education Theme for the PCSBV is: Imagine
Throughout 2022 we will be offering a selection of online and in-person (COVID-19 allowing) opportunities to engage the conversation around palliative, end-of-life care, and the journey of sorrowing.
The theme for each of these events will be informed by the word imagine.
Imagine the day you receive a diagnosis.
Imagine being a caregiver to someone who is dying.
Imagine how a diagnosis changes your relationship to your work, food, clothing, relationships…
Join us in 2022 as we imagine together.
OUR VISION:
A compassionate and collaborative community that ensures the availability of high-quality palliative and end-of-life care.
OUR MISSION:
We will enable individuals and their families to receive care close to where they call home, by coordinating and developing a full spectrum of palliative and end-of-life care in the Bow Valley.
WHAT IS PALLIATIVE CARE?
Palliative Care is a special kind of health care for individuals and families who are living with a life-limiting illness that is usually at an advanced stage.
The goal is to provide comfort and dignity for the person living with the illness as well as the best quality of life for both the patient and their family.
An important objective is the relief of pain and other symptoms.
Palliative care meets not only the physical needs but also the psychological, social, cultural, emotional, and spiritual needs of each person and family.
In Canada, both hospice care and palliative care are used to refer to the same thing, however, some people use hospice care to describe care that is offered in the community rather than in hospitals.*
*Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association
WHAT IS HOSPICE PALLIATIVE CARE?
Hospice Palliative Care helps people who are terminally ill live out their remaining time in comfort and dignity. It is helpful not only when a person is approaching death, but also at earlier stages of an illness.
It can also help families meet the challenges they face when a loved one’s illness cannot be cured.