End of life care
The End of Life Care strategy will support advance care planning, normalize the dialogue around death and dying and increase access to palliative care services across the province.
In 2013, the OMA began working on an End of Life Care strategy that would support advance care planning, normalize the dialogue around death and dying and increase access to palliative care services across the province. The OMA End of Life strategy was launched in 2014 at spring council.
The strategy framework outlines the main goals that focus on:
- Increasing the number of Ontarians who engage in advance care planning
- Bridging advance care planning and palliative care to increase knowledge and normalize dying
- Improving access to palliative care services and support
The OMA has created backgrounders to provide more context to each of the main goals:
- Advance care planning
- Palliative care
- Normalizing death
These tools, publications and resources will be updated as the strategy evolves.
Planning for and providing quality end-of-life care
The OMA provided feedback in May 2021 to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario regarding its current policy on Planning for and Providing Quality End-of-Life Care. The feedback provided was based on input from members and indicates that more clarity is needed in these areas:
- Definition of life-saving and life-sustaining treatments
- Documentation of consent and documentation required in the event of a patient emergency
- How to manage unreasonable patient/substitute decision-maker expectations