The Saint Elizabeth Foundation has helped to open a satellite Journey Home Hospice site in Windsor.
Journey Home Hospice offers end-of-life care to people experiencing homelessness in the community.
The Journey Home Hospice in Windsor, November 16, 2022. (Photo by Maureen Revait)
"We often say, when you don't have a home and you want to die at home and you're living on the streets where do you go to die?" said Nancy Lefebre, senior vice-president of SE Health and the Saint Elizabeth Foundation. "This is one of those places where we will have staff with specialized training and education who can care for that population."
The three hospice beds will be housed in the Assisted Living Southwestern Ontario building on Sandwich Street in west Windsor. Provincial and municipal funding are helping to support the hospice rooms.
Lefebre said while the homeless can access traditional hospice care or palliative care in the hospital they often don't seek help in those places.
"Because they are sometimes not welcome, they feel uncomfortable in those environments, their street families are not allowed into see them perhaps in some cases, and because it is a specialized knowledge and capability to be able to care for these people," said Lefebre.
The first hospice patients are expected to move into the facility by the end of the week.