St. Joe’s supports palliative care with Trees of Light

By Mo Cranker on December 1, 2018.

John Piea places a decorative present under one of St. Joe's Trees of Light Friday afternoon. The group is accepting donations and is hoping to raise support around its programs.--NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker

St. Joe’s annual Trees of Light program is up and running, and the group hopes to raise funds and awareness for its programs.

“It was 1990 when the Trees of Light were first established,” said Medicine Hat Community Board of Covenant Health member John Piea. “There’s been a number of different locations for the trees — first they were at the hospital, downtown, then we had them at St. Joe’s, but with us struggling to get volunteers, we’re not selling lights anymore.”

The Trees of Light used to be three small trees at the side of St. Joe’s but now are located at the front of the building with blue lights on them and presents underneath.

Piea says there is no hard financial goal for the program but the group still accepts donations toward its bed program.

“We have seven beds that we loan out to palliative care patients that we loan out for free,” he said. “We’ve been doing that for several years and continues to go on now.

“There’s costs to that and we’re just trying to raise awareness and funds for palliative care.”

Piea says the group is no longer able to get the help needed to keep the old tradition alive as people knew it.

“We just aren’t able to get the volunteers,” he said. “With us knowing that, we’ve worked on ways to keep the Trees of Light going in a different way.”

Piea says pretty much all palliative care patients in the city are located at St. Joe’s and that the service is essential for the community.

“Palliative and hospice care are needed in every community,” he said. “It’s of really great value that we can have one here in our community and have people locally staying at it.

“The quality of life aspect is a very important one for people at this stage in their life — we try to help make their lives better and it’s good for them that they don’t have to move somewhere else to get these services.”

Piea says all money raised in the Trees of Light program will help people locally.

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