Canada is a Good Place to Spend Your Final Days

Here’s a look at the best, the worst, and why Canada couldn’t crack the Top 10.

However, money is not the only hurdle to improving end of life care. The United States was also award winning 9th from the report.

The bottom ranks of the Quality of Death Index are dominated by developing countries such as India, China, Mexico, Brazil and Uganda, where progress on providing end-of-life care is slow. “Palliative care unit should be integrated into the health care system”, say the foundation’s chairmen T.V.S. At present, a hospice unit is being run jointly by St. Joseph’s Hospital and Sneha Sanhdya Age Care Foundation near Zilla Parishad. Other significant factors that contributed to the effectiveness of end-of-life care, according to the report, include access to opioids (i.e. morphine) for pain alleviation, availability of psychological support and end-of-life conversations, and nationally subsidized palliative care.

Out of a list of 80 countries, the Philippines was placed near bottom when it comes to providing quality palliative care services.

Although wealthier countries fared better, there were a number of developing countries that made notable improvements to how they address palliative care. For example, Mongolia has experienced rapid growth in their hospice facilities and Panama has begun building palliative care into their primary services.

Taiwan is one of the first few nations in the world to introduce a hospice palliative care system.

“A very strong marker in our index is the availability of specialised palliative care workers and this is where the United Kingdom scores particularly well”. She said: “Hospice Care Week is a great platform to get people talking about end of life care and the right that all patients have to make the most of their lives while terminally ill”. Of the 80 countries included, only 34 attained above-average “quality of death” scores on the index-the suggestion being: about 85% of the world’s population still lacks access to the resources needed to help them die well.