The local community is going without essential services. Instead, the focus of the current board has been to fight its own members in court, and to recruit thousands of new members from around the globe in an attempt to spearhead a national movement to oppose MAID and prevent others from being able to choose their own end-of-life care.

The change in direction from the original mandate of Delta Hospice, and the use of assets and income by DHS is at the heart of the dispute for the community. The Take Back Delta Hospice Advocacy Group has organised this grassroots community signup to try to ensure DHS keeps to its original purpose and restores funding to supportive care in the local community.

The DHS Board is counting on their mass sign-ups to change the Society’s bylaws to allow for permanent online meetings. This would enable their global sign-up efforts to overwhelm the local community voice and permanently change the bylaws of the Society. These global members could open the door to redirecting the Delta Hospice assets away from the Harold and Veronica Savage Centre for Supportive Care toward a national anti-choice agenda. 

DHS still owns outright a third building - the Hospice Charity Shoppe. The funds to purchase the shop were provided to DHS through another community capital campaign on the understanding that the shop’s revenue would fund local hospice-related services.

The current assessed value of the building is $3 million dollars, and the shop generates up to $1 million dollars in revenue per year. Donations, volunteer labour, and purchases are all provided by the community on the understanding that their efforts support local hospice-related services.

DHS continues to operate the Charity Shoppe, but none of the revenue is being directed to the Supportive Care Centre or the Irene Thomas Hospice. 

Delta Hospice Society (DHS), a non-profit society, was built up through local volunteers and donations over decades. A capital campaign helped to build the Irene Thomas Hospice and the Harold and Veronica Savage Centre for Supportive Care, both designed to provide care for area residents from Delta and local health authorities.

Since 2010, volunteers and staff provided wraparound service and support to children, youth, adults and seniors, including patient services and individual patient and group counselling. The DHS staff and services were highly regarded, and the community had considerable pride in its accomplishment.

The two buildings are located on land leased from the Fraser Health Authority (FHA), and DHS’s lease with FHA was contingent upon them complying with provincial health regulations. The majority of funding for the hospice operations came from a contract with Fraser Health Authority (FHA), which was applied to medical staffing. This funding was also contingent upon following provincial health care regulations, which now includes patient access to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).

Some within the organization, opposed to the newly introduced MAID legislation, recruited a new board that opposed access to this choice for patients. These board members then refused to comply with the terms of their lease or their Fraser Health funding.

FHA gave notice that this position would result in loss of funding, and the current Board let that occur. There was extensive media coverage, public rallies and a membership drive to try to regain control of DHS.

The DHS Board tried to force a bylaw change to transform the society to a Christian-based organization, in an attempt to avoid the loss of provincial funding. Its own members had to take them to court to prevent them from selectively excluding members who would not support the change to the bylaws.

DHS then lost their government funding due to non-compliance with health policies. FHA terminated the lease, and DHS was evicted from both the Irene Thomas Hospice and the Centre for Supportive Care.

The Irene Thomas Hospice is now wholly operated by the FHA, according to provincial health guidelines. Currently, patients at the hospice do not have the benefit of the additional volunteers who assist patients and their loved ones through end-of-life, nor the grief and bereavement programs previously provided under the umbrella of supportive care services.

These services do not fall within the mandate of FHA, and the community has lost services such as child grief and bereavement counselling, critical illness support groups, and group and individual counselling and therapy. The Supportive Care Centre now sits empty, and FHA has indicated it will begin a public consultation process about its future.

It is unclear at this time if the community will ever have access to supportive care services in the building they provided for that purpose.

Take Back Delta Hospice (TBDH) is a community-based advocacy group that supports respect for everyone’s choices in end-of-life care. Email us at hospice4delta@gmail.com.