The city of Toronto estimates there are between 8-9 thousand people in this city who are experiencing homelessness. Over the past few weeks I have been following a team of health care workers who focus on caring for these people through a palliative care program

The program is known as “The PEACH Program.” It stands for: Palliative Education And Care for the Homeless. It is run through Toronto’s Inner City Health Associates. The program has seen a huge spike in their numbers since the start of the pandemic

The team was kind enough to let me tag along (socially distanced and masked of course!) to see how COVID-19 has changed their reality, and to speak directly from some of their clients about the struggles they have experienced getting end of life care

I know the pandemic has been hard on so many of us. But think about this: you are living in the shelter system, you get a cancer diagnosis, specialist appointments get moved online bc of COVID, you don’t know where meals are coming from, let alone own a phone to attend follow ups

How are you supposed to get the care you need? What does your life look like with all of these barriers in place? What happens to your health?

Add in a pandemic. You are being told to physically distance, going to a hospital comes with new anxieties. Life becomes that much more difficult.

Tonight @globalnewsto @globalnews will start rolling out a three part series looking at these issues and how the PEACH team works to help their patients overcome these barriers.

I am so thankful to the people who shared their stories with me during this process. Everyone was so generous with their time.
Tonight on @globalnewsto you can hear Jimmy Evans’ story. If you want to know what positivity and resilience looks like... look no further

And if you can’t wait for tonight’s broadcast, check out this article: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/7478848/coronavirus-toronto-palliative-care-peach-program/amp/