Construction begins on new Hospice of Waterloo Region facility

The Hospice of Waterloo Region announced Monday that it will begin construction on the Gies Family Centre, a new hospice residence and palliative care facility in north Waterloo.

“We've had enormous support from the community,” said Hospice of Waterloo executive director Judy Nairn. 

Set to open in early 2020, the 28,000 square foot palliative care facility will be built on University Avenue East, across from RIM Park.

The new hospice palliative care centre will offer the region a greater ability to provide end-of-life service, including a ten bed hospice residence, a space for hospice community outreach programs, a palliative care medical clinic, volunteer services and education services for nurses, personal support workers and doctors.

“We currently serve about 1400 people a year,” said Nairn.”…the residence will have ten beds and we expect there will be between 200 and 25 to 250 per year who will use the residence.”

Nairn said the fundraising project has been an ongoing effort, with almost 300 different individuals and organizations coming forward to support the new facility.

“We've just had amazing support from a large number of organizations and individuals in the community who have either recently had an experience themselves in losing a loved one and want to make sure this type of facility is available for people… and others who just… this is a cause that they think is really worthwhile and needed in the community and so they're stepping forward.”

With over $10.8 million dollars raised in support of the new facility, costs are expected to be above $15 million for the full project, but fundraising efforts don't end there.

“We've raised 10.8 now of the twelve that we're hoping the private sector can contribute to this building, so we still have another 1.2 to raise there.” said Nairn. “Once we open, the operating funds for the residence itself and the operating funds that we get currently for the programming we do are only partially funded by the government. So every year there's an ongoing need for fundraising.”

The Hospice of Waterloo executive officer said that, besides building costs, one of the largest problems faced in palliative care is a lack of understanding and as a result many people don't reach out for support.

“I would say one of the big challenges is to get the community to know what we do so they can choose these services and not be afraid of them… and recognize they're here to help them provide a quality of life”.