About
The Dorothy Ley Hospice was founded over 32 years ago as a volunteer-based community service organization offering compassionate care to individuals living with the challenges of a life-limiting illness or loss as well as offering support for family members and caregivers.
Community Support supports individuals and their loved ones from diagnosis, treatment, pain, and symptom management, to comfort care and bereavement in their homes.
Residential Care is provided to individuals in the last weeks of life. Our ten-bed (soon to be twelve) residential hospice is a home-like environment where we provide 24/7 nursing and medical care to individuals at end of life whose care needs exceed the capacity of the care providers to be managed at home.
Residential care aims to allow death to occur naturally rather than prolong life or hasten death. Care is provided through a transdisciplinary team approach consisting of palliative care physicians, registered nurses (RNs), registered practical nurses (RPNs), personal support workers (PSWs), specially trained volunteers and a nutrition consultant whose primary focus of care is on pain and symptom management and personal care.
Our Impact
16,000 trained volunteers in Hospice at Home programs annually help over 21,000 patients stay home and support the well-being of family caregivers. More than half of family caregivers reported that volunteer support averted a trip to the ER saving the system $10,000,000 in unnecessary ER visits.
– Hospice Palliative Care Ontario
The Dorothy Ley Hospice is the only hospice offering both residential and community support services in Toronto. Our Community Support Program provides care coordination and In-home support to over 2000 individuals annually at NO CHARGE who are diagnosed with a life-limiting illness.
Hospices are the only clinical provider that must fundraise to pay for clinical costs.
The Residence provides 24-hour care in a home-like setting to 200 clients annually. Through our community support program, staff serve nearly 1,500 people. Service is provided by a staff of 34 (full and part-time), 12 palliative care physicians and over 280 volunteers who dedicate more than 23,000 hours each year.
How your gift will be used
Wellness
Services offered include: Therapeutic Touch, Tai Chi, Relaxation/Guided Imagery Meditation, Expressive Art and Music Therapy as well as a Legacy Program aimed at helping those who are dying leave a final expression of themselves for their loved ones. The programs are provided by volunteers and students.
Grief and Bereavement
The Dorothy Ley Hospice has a long history of providing quality and necessary grief support services in the community. To better serve the grief needs in the community and increase the wellness of the community, additional investment is required to further develop the grief programming to respond to the increasing need due to the losses suffered through COVID. We have various groups (sibling, parental, spousal loss) and also individual support.
Caregivers
The Dorothy Ley Hospice Caregiver program focuses on providing support to:
- Adults aged 18 years and over who provide care to a family member, friend or neighbor who is living with a life limiting illness
- Referrals from any source, including self-referrals
- Families who live in Etobicoke, or who are otherwise connected to DLH palliative services
- Family caregivers who are living with the individual or in a separate address.
