The FLA OHT Indigenous Palliative Care Project seeks to understand lived experiences and identify important things to consider in palliative care approaches and the end-of-life journey for Indigenous peoples. Research suggests that Indigenous peoples face inequities in access to meaningful, supportive, culturally appropriate, and culturally safe palliative care services at end of life. The Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Ontario Health Team (FLA OHT) working group on palliative care includes a subgroup seeking to improve equitable access to, and cultural safety of, palliative care services for Indigenous populations in the FLA OHT region. To do so, the subgroup seeks to work collaboratively with Indigenous communities to co-design research that identifies Indigenous focused strategies for meaningful palliative care. Good quality, diverse, and comprehensive data are required to support evidence-based development of policies, programs, and services that meet the needs of palliative care in Indigenous communities and for the individuals within them. Research on this topic should be community-driven, participatory, culturally appropriate, culturally safe, and centered in respectful collaborative research partnerships with Indigenous peoples. Research on this topic should also create knowledge and data that will be useful for individuals, communities, healthcare and social service providers, and policymakers. Our aim is to build a foundation of understanding on a path toward concrete actions to support palliative and end of life care for Indigenous individuals and communities in the FLA OHT region. One proposed method is the use of talking circles or other approaches, to explore experiences and specific needs of Indigenous individuals, their families, and their communities at end of life. TEAM: Dr. Amrita Roy (Queen’s, Co-Principal Investigator), Dr. Sarah Funnell (Queen’s, Co-Principal Investigator), Dionne Nolan (South East Regional Cancer Program), Dr. Adrienne Selbie (Kingston Health Sciences Centre), Juli Heney (Ontario Health atHome), Olivia Hofmann (Community Volunteer), Nancy Lee Brown (Kingston Health Sciences Centre), Catherine Galbraith (Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte), Josee Sunday (Providence Care Hospital), Megan Conboy (Kingston Community Health Centres), Lynn Brant (Indigenous Health and Wellness Council; Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte), Anastassiya Khrokova (FLA OHT), Jade Gabri (Queen’s, Research Associate), Dr. Sophy Chan-Nguyen (Queen’s, Research Associate)
TRAINEES: Jenna Cowan (BHSc student), Samantha Lavallee (Graduate Research Associate)
PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS: Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Ontario Health Team; Queen’s University
FUNDER: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
For more information, please contact Research Associate Dr. Sophy Chan-Nguyen at swsc@queensu.ca
