PORT HAWKESBURY: A local physician is continuing his lobby to have more palliative care services in the Strait area.
Dr. Robert Martell hosted an information session about palliative care at the Evergreen Senior Citizens Club in Port Hawkesbury on January 31.
Dr. Martell said palliative care is important for all residents as everyone will eventually need it at some point.
“There is a great need for palliative care services in the area,” said Dr. Martell.
“Individuals were quite shocked to learn some of the things that palliative care can do, not only for people with cancer… it’s for anyone with a chronic illness or a life threatening illness for which they have symptoms that are not under control. “
When asked what people have to do to increase the quality of palliative care in their communities, Dr. Martell said education is key since one problem is that people do not know enough about what the discipline can do for them.
“Because of that I think there is a great deal of unnecessary suffering,” he said.
“We’re going to hopefully have people mobilized to have government look at providing the services that we think are necessary.”
One question coming from the audience asked why there isn’t a palliative care team in the area. Dr. Martell said he didn’t know how to answer such a question and said it should be posed to the Nova Scotia Health Authority. He said people have to make do with the current resources, noting Dr. Dorothy Barnard, chair of the Dr. Kingston Memorial Community Health Centre Board, is spearheading the development of a palliative care team with the Nova Scotia Health Authority.