November 03, 2025

Life remains: hospice leaders talk about Chapman House

“People don’t come to Chapman House to die — they come here to finish living.”

This observation by two skilled professionals from Hospice Grey Bruce (the charitable organization whose services are provided through Chapman House in Owen Sound) is an astute introduction to the remarks they will make as guest speakers at the Grey Highlands PROBUS Club’s free monthly public lecture for November, to be held on Wednesday November 12 at 2:00 pm in Kimberley Community Hall (doors open at 1:30 p.m.) Everyone is welcome. The lecture is co-sponsored with PROBUS by the Grey Highlands Public Library and the Kimberley Community Association. The Community Hall is at 235309 Grey Road 13, in the village of Kimberley.

The speakers will be Hospice Director Tanya Shute and Amy McConachie, Foundation Manager at Chapman House.

Each of these two leaders came to their shared commitment to hospice care through different routes. Tanya, who hails from Thunder Bay, is a social worker who was first attracted to inpatient and community care for seniors, to helping people living with disabilities and to the system-level work that she knew could best achieved through social work. A move to Grey County and a career opportunity at Grey Bruce Hospice allowed her to move in a direction that builds on her body of clinical, management and systems-planning experience.

Amy had planned to follow her mother’s path into nursing. Training as a personal support worker (PSW) and her years as a mom took her on a different caring path, honed further when he mother became terminally ill and used hospice care. “I was sold on it” says Amy, who melded her admiration for hospice care with her skill at fundraising, to the benefit of the people who use the services of Grey Bruce Hospice.

The title of their talk — Grey Bruce Hospice: Built By Our Community, For Our Community — reflects their belief that hospice care is not a hiding-away of people in the last years of life — it is a passionate commitment to helping people to embrace community — however they define it — as they enter the last stage of lives well lived.

They point out that hospice care can easily be overlooked in a health care system whose technology-rich curative component is often the most visible part of our caring culture. “It’s not either-or between these two necessary resources” they maintain, and end-of-life care marks neither a failure of the health system, nor a failure of families to care for their loved ones. It’s a form of care that provides people in the last stage of life, and their families, with the resources at their fingertips that they need so people can write the last chapter of life’s book in their own words.

Tanya and Amy recognize with sympathy the dilemmas many of us live with when we contemplate the end of our own lives of the lives those we love. They recognize that people are often reluctant to embrace end-of-life planning as if it was a negation of life, or they fear that having a plan traps a person in a pre-ordained future. But to Tanya and Amy, end-of life planning and care increases options rather than narrowing them. And both these care professionals take pleasure in showing visitors through Chapman House, even (or particularly) those who are nervous about this exposure to what they consider death rather than life Tanya and Amy embrace these opportunities to show people a facility and care team enveloped in joy, not despair.

They point out that an increase in options has been the hallmark of the evolution of palliative from its inception as a formal caring philosophy in the late 1960s to its current “wraparound” approach to care. Home care was once the only option, they point out, and the team of professionals whose work contributed to a graceful life’s end was narrower than it is today.

What characterizes those of us who need hospice care? Having a life-limiting illness and being in the last weeks or days of life are what make hospice care suitable for people and their families who choose this option rather than having it thrust upon them.

Amy and Tanya both credit the Chapman family and Chapman’s Ice Cream for their initial support for the hospice concept and for underwriting much of the cost of building what Grey Bruce Hospice chose to call Chapman House. Support from Chapman’s continues to this day, say Tanya and Amy — and donated Chapman’s Ice Cream is always available at the House, augmenting the dollars Chapman’s provides.

They point out that many people are under the impression that the operating costs of Chapman House are fully covered by the government. In fact, government funding covers 46% of the costs, but Chapman House still needs to raise $1.3 million each year.

Amy and Tanya point to the surprising number of ways a team of 75 volunteers contribute to the success of Chapman House, augmenting the work of its 50 staff. Volunteers serve in reception at the House, in fund-raising or facility maintenance — or in the all-important gardening that takes place at Chapman House. They point out that each resident’s room has sliding doors allowing access to greenery, something many people treasure as life nears its close. As well, a group of resident and family care volunteers assist residents and families after receiving specialized training from Chapman House. Tanya and Amy also praise the work of trained volunteers who place supportive check-in phone calls to families after a resident has died, reflecting the hospice’s belief that families as well as residents are part of the heart of Chapman House. They reiterate their willingness to give people tours of the facility. “People are often delighted to find that Chapman House smells of bacon and fresh bread” Amy says with a smile. And says Tanya, “Our volunteers are our greatest ambassadors.”

Tanya and Amy each share touching moments they’ve experienced at Chapman House. Tanya describes her experience with a man a year ago who entered Chapman House after a stint in a long-term care facility. Having no family, he relied on a supportive group of Chapman House staff to be his “honour guard” after he passed from life — an honour guard who read aloud his “thank you” to volunteers and staff. “He asked me to play a recording of Don McLean’s song American Pie to mark his passing, and I was honoured to do it” says Tanya.

Amy in turn recalls a phone call from an animal shelter. Ruby, the pet dog of a Chapman House resident, had to be surrendered to the shelter when he entered care, and the shelter, sensing the dog’s grief, asked if the dog could visit her master at the House. “We jumped at the opportunity” says Amy. “With the resident’s permission we arranged visits by Ruby three times a week, and the shelter agreed not to re-home Ruby until her master had passed.”

Would you like more information? Would you like a tour of Chapman House? Please contact Hospice Director Tanya Shute at tshute@greybrucehospice.com and (519) 370.7239, or Foundation Manager Amy McConachie at Amcconachie@gbhfoundation.com and (519) 370.7239.

Join your friends at the Kimberley Community Hall on November 12 at 2:00 p.m. to hear how Grey Bruce Hospice has evolved into so much more than hospice, offering grief and bereavement services, advanced care planning, and post-secondary learning opportunities for students.

And meet Tanya and Amy and to share in their life-affirming stories of Chapman House and Grey Bruce Hospice.

 

---

At South Grey News, we endeavour to bring you truthful and factual, up-to-date local community news in a quick and easy-to-digest format that’s free of political bias. We believe this service is more important today than ever before, as social media has given rise to misinformation, largely unchecked by big corporations who put profits ahead of their responsibilities.

South Grey News does not have the resources of a big corporation. We are a small, locally owned-and-operated organization. Research, analysis and physical attendance at public meetings and community events requires considerable effort. But contributions from readers and advertisers, however big or small, go a long way to helping us deliver positive, open and honest journalism for this community.

Please consider supporting South Grey News with a donation in lieu of a subscription fee and let us know that our efforts are appreciated. Thank you.