Palliative Care Services for Our Community

Palliative care specialists provide palliative and supportive care in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

What is palliative care?

Palliative and supportive care is a medical specialty for people living with serious illness. It is active care that focuses on maintaining the quality of life, comfort, autonomy, and dignity of each patient.
Palliative care includes:

• providing support to a patient, caregiver and loved ones throughout an illness
• improving quality of life
• reducing or relieving pain and symptoms
• helping make important decisions about care

Who could benefit from palliative care?

Patients may benefit from palliative care if they are facing a serious illness, such as cancer, advanced heart, lung, or kidney disease, dementia, or neurological diseases.

How do I access the palliative care specialty service?

You can be referred by your family doctor/nurse practitioner or any other medical/nursing specialist.

When and where is palliative care provided?

Palliative care can be provided through all phases of a potentially life limiting illness, from diagnosis through disease treatment, to end-of-life and bereavement. Palliative care is provided in hospital, community, and home/hospice.

Who provides care on this specialty care team?

Our team includes doctors and nurses specialized in providing palliative care. We work with other health care providers like Ontario Health atHome your family doctor or nurse practitioner and your specialist.

What can I expect once a referral has been made to the Palliative Care speciality team?

You will have an initial phone call from a palliative care nurse who will assess your immediate needs. After this call, an in-person appointment with the palliative care specialist will be made. You will also be referred to other health care professionals, as needed.