Canadian Government to Funds Palliative Care Training
The federal government is investing another $3 million into palliative care services over the next three years, Health Minister Rona Ambrose announced Thursday. The funding goes to the Pallium Foundation of Canada and was promised in the 2013 federal budget. The foundation provides educational tools to agencies that deliver hospice, or end-of-life, care. Ambrose said the money will help train frontline healthcare workers and is “critical to ease the strain on families.” She said the government has put $43 million into palliative care research in the past eight years.
Only 16 to 30 per cent of Canadians who die have access to or received hospice palliative and end-of-life care services, depending on where they live in Canada, according to a 2007 report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.