According to a new report from the Canadian Cancer Society, access to palliative services is patchy, while stressed families go into debt to look after loved ones dying of cancer.

As reported in a recent Globe & Mail article, poor end-of-life care for cancer patients is due to four principal factors:

* The inadequacy of programs that allow people to die at home when it is their preference;

* Insufficient use of palliative-care services, largely because patients are referred to those services too late;

* Families not knowing how to access end-of-life care and being overwhelmed by psychosocial and financial burdens;

* A lack of basic data and research on how to minimize the pain and suffering of patients with terminal cancer.

“End-of-life care has to become part of the conversation,” said Camilla Zimmermann, the head of palliative care at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. “Right now, it’s up to chance whether you get good palliative care or not.”

“I don’t know if there’s a ‘good death’ – that’s a weird expression,” Dr. Zimmermann said. “But there is a bad death – dying in pain without people you love around you and in psychological, physical and spiritual distress.

“We can prevent a bad death with good palliative care.”

For more information at Hospice Care provided by St. James Community Service Society, see here.