The Lachine Hospital’s palliative care unit offers comfort, dignity and compassion

Palliative care as we know it today was founded in Montreal. In 1975, surgical oncologist Dr. Balfour Mount opened Canada’s first comprehensive palliative care centre at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Today, the Lachine Hospital carries on this legacy at its much-lauded palliative care unit.

Headed by Dr. Geneviève Chaput, the Lachine Hospital’s palliative care unit is staffed by a team of physicians, nurses, a psychologist, a social worker, music therapists, pharmacists, chaplains and more. The goal of the unit, which has six in-patient beds as well as out-patient services, is to provide treatment according to patients’ wishes, all with compassion and empathy.

“I think the most telling word in ‘palliative care’ is the ‘care’ part. Our work encompasses seeing a person fully—physically, emotionally, spiritually—as opposed to just their diagnosis,” says Dr. Chaput.

Palliative care is available to patients and their families experiencing end-stage diseases such as cancer, kidney disease and heart failure. Though receiving this type of care is often associated with terminal illness, this is not always the case. In recent years, palliative care has evolved to follow individuals as early as when they are first diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. This ensures patients are supported throughout treatment.

“There’s this myth that palliative care is associated with death and that we’re here to take care of people who are going to die, but palliative care is also about supportive care. Though some are not curable, others are,” says Dr. Chaput.

Dr. Chaput and her team strive to help patients live comfortably and with dignity. Medical interventions such as pain management are incredibly important, but equally important is seeing the individual as a person, not just a patient, and making them feel safe and looked after.

“Honouring a person’s dignity—their personhood—makes all the difference. And this extends beyond our team—it is at the core of the culture and values of the Lachine Hospital,” says Dr. Chaput.

The Lachine Hospital is building a new palliative care unit as part of the hospital’s $210 million renovation and expansion. The new, modern unit will increase capacity from six beds to ten. Its restful design will include a terrace where patients can enjoy fresh air.

To enhance the new space, the Lachine Hospital Foundation and the MUHC Foundation are fundraising to provide equipment and additional comforts to the space. Part of their $5 million Dream Big: Lachine Hospital campaign, this fundraising effort will furnish a comforting family room, provide a pain-relieving therapeutic bath and more.

The importance of palliative care cannot be understated. Dr. Mount, often called the father of palliative care in Canada, puts it best:

“When pain and other symptoms are controlled, there really is limitless potential for quality of life at the end of life. A key component is that it’s not about ending things; it’s about the present moment. That’s all that any of us have, is just now. And it turns out that there’s endless potential in the present moment.”

For Dr. Chaput and her outstanding team at the Lachine Hospital, this limitless potential for quality of life is what inspires them to help every patient live in comfort and dignity until the very end.