La Maison Au Diapason (“La Maison”) has received an additional financial support of $32,000 per bed – there are eight beds in total – from the provincial government that will be directly invested in the general operations and working conditions of La Maison.
La Maison is an organization that provides free palliative care and psychological support in the Brome-Missisquoi and Haute-Yamaska regions to individuals that are terminally ill and their families.
“When people come here, they don’t pay for their food, they don’t pay for their care, they don’t pay for the equipment that we will use with them. The stay is free, and up until now, we were being partially subsidized by the government to provide that care,” said Charlotte Evans, executive director of La Maison, La Foundation Au Diapason and the Équipe d’accompagneant (volunteer support organization for patients at La Maison).
Seeking to provide comfort for terminally ill patients that do not want to be in a hospital or isolated at home, Evans said that it took 18 months of hard work to receive the additional funding and that it will help La Maison get ahead.
“We are going from $78,000 a year per bed to $110,000 a year per bed. It’s a very significant increase for us. It really is going to allow us to continue to operate and to become potentially more competitive with the labour market. We all know that there are shortages of staff everywhere and this money will be directly applied to enhancing our working conditions for our staff,” explained Evans.
Despite this additional support from the provincial government, Evans said that the cost of living and maintenance of La Maison keeps rising. La Maison still needs community support in order to provide the best possible care to patients while also taking care of its staff and volunteers.
“We will still require support from the community, but this is just going to make it a tiny bit easier for us to operate comfortably, and to operate comfortably for the best of our patients and their families,” she mentioned.
Listen to the full interview with Charlotte Evans below: