Each Day Matters
We believe that lives matter, right up until their very last days. Through education, awareness, fundraising, and providing for practical needs, such as in-home care beds, Prairie Rose Hospice Palliative Care Society (PRHPCS) promotes and supports local palliative care efforts.
Prairie Rose Hospice is a non-profit society run by a volunteer board of caring individuals and health care professionals, and all monies go directly to local hospice care in Brooks, Bassano, and area.
Why Hospice?
Hospice palliative care is a concept of care aimed at enhancing the quality of living and dying for individuals and their families. It is for anyone of any age who is living with a progressive and/or life-threatening illness. Sooner or later, we are all affected by palliative care, whether directly or with someone we care about. Compassionate and personalized care can enhance the quality of a person’s remaining life journey.
In a Nutshell
We are a group of volunteers that believes that life matters, right until the last breath. We
have evolved from the hospital palliative care committee. Now, we are a non-profit society
(2016) run by a board of local caring individuals who are always looking for more
members.
Our goals include the support to individuals, during and following the life journey. Any and
all monies raised stay in our communities be it for beds to enable people to stay home
longer, education to help them through the journey or education for caregivers and our
volunteers to help them.
At our AGM, (year-end March 31st) 11 directors are elected to form the board, who then
become our voting delegation. All others are members who become the resources for our
directors to draw from to run the organization. All directors and members for an annual fee
of $20.00 are welcome to attend all meetings and offer input, as well as we have community
volunteers who prefer to not attend but are a needed and valuable resource to the society.
Our directors then elect within the group the roles of chair, vice-chair, treasurer, secretary, and chair of our standing committees. We also have sub-committees that are formed as
needed. Each committee is responsible for the total of their project, that is organization,
budgeting, collecting of monies, running of the event, and reporting to the board on the
event utilizing as many members/volunteers as is required.
Our standing committees include:
Memorial Service
This continues to run twice a year, 3rd Sunday in March and September
and is an opportunity to honour the loss of loved ones in the past 6 months. It is a non-denominational service, which can be attended in person at the Duchess Mennonite Church and is also saved for viewing online. Families of lost loved ones are invited through an ad in the Brooks Bulletin, on our Facebook page, as well as our web page. Generally, it takes about 6 people to do this event. We include a small luncheon and an opportunity for people to help with the grieving process, socialize and share memories. It is a valuable time for members to attend as well.
Tree of Hope (TOH)
An opportunity to help with the grieiving process honour, remember families & friends who have been deceased, as well, as a fundraiser enabling us to meet our goals. The organization of this event starts in October and ends in December with the posting of names in the Brooks Bulletin and on our web page. Thank you to the many voluntees that help make this happen. We are very proud of our new metal Trees of Hope at the Brooks Health Centre.
Comfort Measures
New and ongoing, with organizing and stocking care bags, delivering the same to the hospitals in Brooks and Bassano, as well as, with the palliative care resource nurse to follow up with patients choosing to remain at home. These bags contain not only small comfort items like lap quilt, tea, socks but information on physical changes to be expected and information on resources that can be accessed.
Until late 2021, this committee had also looked after the evening bereavement group and the community resource pamphlet found on our webpage.
Education
This year we are hosting a workshop on grief in February and a conference on Alzheimers in June. We are also hoping to offer more education to our members and volunteers both online and in person. When we can, we provide for the community a yearly full day in service as well as we have done lunch and learn sessions in the past.
Fundraising – Gaming
The casino committee stays in contact with AGL and organizes volunteers when we are able to have a casino. This is a huge fundraiser and we appreciate all the help we can get. We also do raffles where we ask all members to help with selling tickets.
Four In-home Bed & Tables
We have partnered with Brooks Health Foundation to provide this service to hospice palliative care clients in Brooks and the area. As of May 4/21, PRHPCS has taken over the handling of these medical supplies for palliative care clients. Thank you to Brooks Health Foundation for your past partnership with PRHPCS.