Photo: Bronwyn Scott
By Bronwyn Scott
Published: July 13, 2013
The new president of the Squamish Rotary Club, Mike Nasu, has big plans for his one year term with a special focus on hospice care.
On Saturday, June 1, at an installation ceremony at the Squamish Valley Golf & Country Club, Nasu took the presidential reins of the club from Denise Imbeau.
Nasu has been a Rotarian from his earliest days in Squamish when he moved here in 2005. He wanted to contribute to the community and the best way he knew how was to get involved with Rotary.
“They’ve done a lot of good things, not only in this community but globally, so for me it was a means to definitely give back. That was the most important thing,” said Nasu.
After serving as sergeant of arms, director of membership and being an executive, among other positions, Nasu finally gets to pay special attention to the cause that’s closest to him: hospice care.
Squamish has no designated hospice unit or end of life care beds and volunteers run the current system.
The dying spend their last days alongside every other patient, under glaring florescent hospital lighting and in ‘rooms’ delineated by curtains.
“I’ve been through a few deaths in my family, not in a palliative care setting, you’re in this cold hospital room . . . I find a lot of times there’s almost no dignity,” said Nasu.
While securing funding for beds and other furnishings won’t be too much of a problem, operational costs of staffing will be more difficult, Nasu said.
Another challenge will be getting the attention of Vancouver Coastal Health, but Nasu is hopeful that the support of Rotary and the community through a large scale fundraiser will propel VCH into action.
Acquiring the beds and securing a location for a hospice should be a priority, according to Dr. Judith Fothergill, lead physician for the palliative care team.
“We certainly do have lots of people who spend the last days of their life and die in Squamish hospital,” she said.
Although Squamish isn’t large enough to justify having a separate hospice building, an area in Hilltop House or part of acute care in the hospital is a possibility, she noted.
Other ongoing projects Rotary will continue to support include the Squamish Schools Breakfast Program, which supplies healthy food for kids, building sustainable garden plots for Squamish Elementary and teaching bike safety to school-age children.
“There’s a lot of things Rotarians do that aren’t even done in the name of Rotary,” said Don Patrick, Nasu’s vice president, a member since 1972.
Its causes range anywhere from repairing roofs to supplying the disabled with wheelchairs not supplied by the government.
Internationally the Rotary Club has made substantial impacts, including the eradication of polio.
As of 2011 Rotary contributed more than $900-million to the cause, immunizing almost two-billion children worldwide.
