Island seniors attend joint info session on end-of-life planning

by Nash Alonto

Jan. 18, 2024

David Murphy wants to learn more about end-of-life planning. He attended an information session co-hosted by Community Legal Information and Hospice P.E.I. at the Royalty Centre in Charlottetown, P.E.I., on Wed., Jan. 17, 2024, about the basic information on preparing a will and how it is executed. (photo by Nash Alonto)

David Murphy is in his 70s.

The retired Charlottetown-based physician’s assistant wanted to be informed with what’s going on with in the healthcare area, so Murphy attended the joint information session co-hosted by Community Legal Information (CLI) and Hospice P.E.I. at the Royalty Centre on Wed., Jan. 17, 2024.

“I’ve noticed…that continued education in aspects of care is important, especially when one is a senior” Murphy said.

Murphy had little to no expectation when attending the seminar other than to pick-up anything new with the process on wills and estates, he learned a lot on how it basically works, from writing one’s will to deciding one’s end-of-life plans.

“(CLI and Hospice P.E.I.) are both very good. Both (have) diverse areas of expertise, and both have information for everybody here,” he said.

Murphy was one of almost two dozen people, mostly seniors, who attended the activity.

Hospice P.E.I. Executive Director Nancymarie Arsenault gives a presentation on advanced healthcare planning. (photo by Nash Alonto)

According to Hospice P.E.I. Executive Director Nancymarie Arsenault, whenever she conducts presentations on advanced care planning, she comes across many legal questions, such as power of attorney, which is difficult for Arsenault to explain because she’s not a lawyer.

Therefore, Arsenault would seek out CLI to help in providing the information.

“That would be a great little roadshow to go with them (CLI) to do some presentations across the province,” she thought.

“The idea was to utilize expertise of CLI, ‘cause even though I know a lot of the material that they put out, I don’t speak to that piece of it…and knowing that some of the questions came up in presentations often…the documents that they print and present were useful,” Arsenault said.

Hannah Jones, community liaison for Community Legal Information, gives a presentation on how the power of attorney works. (photo by Nash Alonto)

Hannah Jones, the community liaison for CLI, also thought of having that collaboration with Hospice P.E.I. because they also serve a similar type of client, seniors.

“Non-profit organizations are looking at ways to collaborate and serve the community as best as we can, and it helps us get the information as well,” Jones said.

“There’s a lot of information that is valuable for people as they’re planning ahead, so we wanted to share all of the great resources that we have about wills & estates, power of attorney, and also about advance healthcare planning.”

After the information session, Murphy plans to “keep on living.”