Life and Death Matters

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Life and Death Matters

Healthcare education and resources for educators, caregivers and nurses. Supporting excellence in en

Developers of engaging, interactive, creative hospice, palliative and end-of-life care educational resources for practical nurses and personal support workers/nursing assistants. We have a particular interest in assisting practical nurses, health care workers and family caregivers and have assembled a family of educational resources for these students:

"Essentials in Hospice and Palliative Care:

A Practical Resource for Every Nurse" is tailored specifically to practical nurses learning to provide care for the dying. In Canada, we have a text "Integrating a Palliative Approach: Essentials for Personal Support Workers"
For nursing assistants and their counterparts in the USA, we have "Integrating a Palliative Approach: Essentials for Nursing Assistants"

We strive to make learning interesting and teaching easier. Which is why we developed companion workbooks, free podcasts and free videos for students, and a free Instructor's Guide to help integrate this content into core curriculum. And of course, we will come to you with face to face presentations and workshops... let's talk.

08/27/2026

This month, as we honour Women’s Equality Day, we’re recognising the women who carry so much of Canada’s hands‑on care, including family caregivers, nurses, and PSWs who support people through illness, dying, and grief every day.

To support that work, Life & Death Matters offers a free introductory course: Integrating a Palliative Approach to Care. It’s a gentle, accessible starting point for anyone supporting people with serious or life-limiting illnesses who want to deepen their understanding of the palliative approach, strengthen communication, and feel more prepared in the moments that matter.

The course emphasizes dignity, whole-person care, and support for individuals and their chosen families. A short quiz follows the training, and participants who successfully complete the course receive a certificate of completion.

Explore the free introductory course. Link in comments

08/26/2026

This month, we’ve been reflecting on Women’s Equality Day and what it asks of us in care. Our latest blog looks at the real weight of care work in Canada and who is carrying it.

PSWs, HCAs and CCA's especially immigrant and racialized women, hold some of the closest and most demanding responsibilities in home care, long‑term care, and community care. Our blog explores why recognition matters, but why redistributing the load matters even more.

If you work in care, teach care, or care about care, this piece is for you.

Read the blog: Link in comments

08/25/2026

What Equity Requires

Equity in Canada’s palliative care system means holding several commitments at once. It starts with safe and equitable labour conditions for PSWs and HCAs, including living wages, stable hours, benefits, and safety. It also requires building compassionate communities as real infrastructure, with trained volunteers, funded programs, and workplace caregiving policies that genuinely share the load.

Equity depends on adequate public resources for palliative care, with sustained funding, standardized training, and system‑level accountability rather than short‑term grants. And it needs a true palliative approach woven through every layer of care, formal and informal, so that skill, presence, and dignity are recognised wherever care is happening.

Life and Death Matters supports this work by providing evidence‑informed training resources that strengthen caregivers, educators, and communities across Canada.

Explore our training resources. Link in comments

08/20/2026

The Resources for Palliative Care Have Not Kept Pace with Need

Canada’s need for palliative care is rising quickly. Three quarters of Canadians say they want to die at home. Yet access to palliative home care remains uneven and progress on the national Framework on Palliative Care has been described as slow. Stakeholders report little movement on evidence-based guidelines, outcome measurement, or national tracking, and note that palliative care research is still chronically underfunded.

Federal investments have increased, but announcements are not the same as real system-wide resourcing. Meeting Canada’s growing need requires adequate staffing ratios, standardized training and credential recognition for PSWs and HCAs, sustained funding for compassionate community infrastructure, and wages that reflect the skill and responsibility this work demands. Without this, the gaps continue to fall on the same workers and families who are already carrying the closest, most demanding care.

Learn more in our blog. Link in comments

08/19/2026

Women’s Equality Day is a moment to reflect on where equity still needs to grow, including in the places where care happens.

In Canada, women continue to carry the closest, most hands‑on parts of the care system. PSWs and HCAs, overwhelmingly women and disproportionately racialized and immigrant, provide most of the direct care older adults receive. Family caregivers, also mostly women, absorb enormous unpaid labour supporting people who are dying, grieving, or living with serious illness. Their work is skilled, essential, and too often undervalued.

Women’s Equality Day reminds us that gender equity includes care equity. It means fair wages, safe workplaces, stable hours, and real recognition for the women who sustain home care, long term care, and community support. It also means building compassionate communities that share the load instead of leaving the same women to carry it alone.

At Life and Death Matters, we honour the women who hold up this system and commit to strengthening the training, support, and community capacity that make equitable care possible.

08/18/2026

Compassionate communities offer a powerful way to redistribute the emotional and practical load of caregiving. Developed from the work of Professor Allan Kellehear, this public health approach treats death, dying, caregiving, and grief as everyone’s responsibility, not something carried only by health professionals, family members, or paid care workers.

Canada is becoming a leader in this movement. By 2023, more than 223 Compassionate Community initiatives were active across the country, including models developed in rural and First Nations communities. When built properly, these initiatives widen the circle of support. Trained neighbours check in, workplaces adopt real bereavement and caregiving policies, faith communities offer meals and companionship, and volunteer networks provide respite. This kind of shared care can ease pressure on unpaid family caregivers and an overstretched paid workforce.

There is an important caveat. Compassionate communities must never be used as a reason to under-resource PSWs and HCAs. Community support cannot replace fair wages, stable hours, proper staffing, and real investment in the paid workforce. It must stand alongside a strong, well-funded care system, not in place of one.

08/13/2026

Intersectionality Is Not Optional

Women’s Equality Day asks us to look even more closely at who is carrying the weight of care in Canada. After naming that the load falls on a narrow band of women, we also need to recognise that not all women experience this work in the same way.

Census‑based research from Toronto Metropolitan University shows how gender, race, and immigration status overlap to shape the realities of immigrant women PSWs. These workers face wage penalties, precarious hours, health and safety risks, racism and harassment, lack of benefits, and chronic undervaluation. They provide essential hands‑on care, yet the conditions surrounding their labour remain deeply inequitable.

Intersectionality is not optional. Any conversation about equality that ignores these overlapping disadvantages is incomplete. Today we uplift the racialized immigrant women whose care sustains families, communities, and the health system, and we affirm that their voices must shape policy, workforce investment, and the future of palliative care in Canada.

08/12/2026

The Weight of Care Falls in One Place

Women’s Equality Day encourages us to look closely at where the weight of care is actually falling in Canada. Right now, an enormous amount of the labour involved in dying, caregiving, and grief support rests on a narrow band of people. Family caregivers, still overwhelmingly women, carry much of this work. Alongside them are PSWs and HCAs, also overwhelmingly women and disproportionately racialized and immigrant, who routinely stretch beyond their paid hours to fill gaps nobody else is covering.

Canada’s own palliative care model assumes that only a small portion of support should come from the formal health system, with the rest shared across community networks. But that wider circle is not resourced. Instead, the unpaid and underpaid labour is being absorbed by the same women who are already carrying the closest, most hands‑on responsibilities.

As we move through August, we are naming this imbalance clearly. Real equity requires redistributing the weight of care so it is shared across a properly supported workforce and a genuinely resourced community.

08/11/2026

As Women’s Equality Day approaches, we look closely at who is holding up Canada’s care system as the numbers tell a clear story. Women make up more than 75 percent of Canada’s health care workforce, and in Ontario that figure rises to 81 percent. For the closest, most hands‑on roles, the picture sharpens even further with PSWs and Care Aides providing up to 80 percent of the direct care older adults receive, whether at home or in long term care.

Research shows this workforce is overwhelmingly women, overwhelmingly racialized, and overwhelmingly immigrant. In the Greater Toronto Area, 90 percent of PSWs are women, 90 percent are racialized, and 97 percent were born outside Canada. Racialized women make up just 13 percent of Ontario’s overall workforce, yet they represent 25 percent of workers in nursing and residential care facilities and 27 percent in home health care services.

As we move through August, we are grounding our conversations in this reality. Care work is not evenly distributed. It rests on a narrow band of women who are not equitably recognized and supported by a living wage. Recognising this is the first step toward building equity.

Learn more in our latest blog. Link in comments

08/09/2026

🌿 International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous approaches to care remind us that care is relational, community‑rooted, and grounded in connection. These teachings show that care is strongest when it is shared, when responsibility is held together, and when dignity is upheld through relationships.

On the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, we honour the knowledge keepers, Elders, and communities whose teachings continue to shape compassionate care across Canada. Their wisdom guides us toward systems that value, promote and embrace connection, reciprocity, and collective responsibility.

Address

2958 Lamont Road
Saanichton, BC
V8M1W5

Telephone

+12506526781

Website

https://beacons.ai/lifeanddeathmatters

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