Talking about death won’t kill you, and Dr. Kathy Kortes-Miller wants to help people not be so scared of planning for their own demise.
The social worker and Lakehead University professor is speaking at Matthews House Hospice in Alliston on Wednesday afternoon as part of Hospice Palliative Care Week, May 6-12.
“We distance ourselves from dying and death. We don’t necessarily think about what it’s going to be like for ourselves,” she told BradfordToday.
“(There are) conversations that need to happen at the end of life.”
Instead of leaving everything up to doctors, Kortes-Miller said people should take initiative and make decisions about what they want at the end of their lives.
This should include conversations with family members and physicians to let them know your wishes, she said.
Kortes-Miller is also the palliative care division lead at the Centre for Education and Research on Aging and Health in Thunder Bay, where she lives. There is also a campus for the centre in Orillia.
She said she wrote her book, Talking About Death Won't Kill You: The Essential Guide to End-of-Life Conversations, in response to a need she saw while attending various talks and forums on the subject.
With the legalization of medical assistance in dying, “Canadians are paying attention to end of life more than they have before,” she said. “Canadians want to know what their options are.”
Kortes-Miller said she is thrilled to be speaking in Simcoe County, and, as a cancer survivor, she has her own unique perspective into the topic of death.
“One of the ways we can prepare for death is living fully to the end,” she said.
Talking About Death Won't Kill You
WHAT: Talk for Hospice Palliative Care Week
WHEN: May 8
TIME: 2 p.m.
WHERE: Matthews House Hospice, second floor great room, 131 Wellington St. E., Alliston
There is also a Hospice Palliative Care Week flag raising May 8 at 9:30 a.m. outside the Bradford West Gwillimbury Courthouse, 57 Holland St. E.
