BCHospice (BCHPCA)

The demand for grief and bereavement care is expanding. As a result of the rapidly aging population in British Columbia, the British Columbia Hospice and Palliative Care Association (BCHPCA) is encouraging provincial party leaders and candidates to create a plan to ensure that grief and bereavement care is available to all residents of the province, including rural and remote areas. Although British Columbia experiences more deaths per capita than other jurisdictions, its palliative care expenditure remains disproportionately low and accounts for just 2% of the health care budget despite experiencing the same number of deaths per capita. It is common for rural and remote residents, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, and the differently abled to face barriers to receiving timely, appropriate, and safe health care. The current government of BC has yet to outline its plans for the upcoming election, even though Ontario's budget for 2024 contains robust hospice and palliative…