Canada: Terminally ill Canadians are not so much concerned about where they die, rather they prefer to be able to die in the right environment and circumstance , according to Queen's University Professor of Medicine Daren Heyland. This was part of a National study on end-of-life care that was led by Dr. Heyland, research director in the Department of Medicine at Kingston General Hospital that avidly sought patients’ point of view regarding how they would wish to die. The study revealed that most terminally ill expressed that dying at home was not as important as having faith and confidence in the Doctors that took care of them. The ratio of terminally ill Canadians dying in Hospital Vis a Vis home is 7:10, which means seven out of every 10 Canadians die in hospital.
This is one among the five studies purported to be conducted by the team. During the course of their study, they will address different facets of terminally ill patient care, examine satisfaction levels, preferences in place of death, knowledge about the disease treatment measures, and recovery rates.In Dr. Heyland’s words, Our research focus is to describe, understand, evaluate, and ultimately, improve communication and decision-making at the end of life. We believe the knowledge and tools generated by our research efforts will inform strategies to improve the quality of and satisfaction with end of life care.
The research teams from Queen’s are additionally supported by Sam Shortt (Centre for Health Services and Policy Research), Joan Tranmer (School of Nursing) and Miu Lam (Community Health and Epidemiology).
Results of the study are published in the current edition of the Canadian Medical Journal
Source: Eureka
