Life after death

Frail bodies move like shadows through the well-worn interior of May’s Place, a six-bed hospice located on the third floor of a nondescript building on Powell Street in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The air is filled with the sound of gentle murmurs, while anxious visitors walk purposefully in and out the front door.

“Today’s a busy day because we have someone who’s actively dying,” explains Micaela Simon.

Now in her third year as a nurse at May’s Place, Simon speaks of death with a directness that would be disconcerting if she didn’t exude such a reassuring combination of compassion and pragmatism.
Unlike her hospital colleagues, Simon’s job isn’t to help people get better. It’s to help people die in comfort.

“We give a lot of pain medications, and they’re given around the clock, every four hours,” she says.

“Sometimes it’s just taking care of someone who is not conscious. Sometimes it’s looking after their families because they need care too; we’ll just talk with them, we’ll cook a meal for them.”

Established in 1990, May’s Place is one of two hospices run by the St. James Community Service Society, a not-for-profit agency serving the Downtown Eastside and East Vancouver.

Residents of May’s Place are charged a per diem rate based on their income, with priority given to eastside residents. They’re not badgered about their health but provided with whatever comforts they need, including a smoking room, television and even a resident cat named Star who, says Simon, seems to know when someone is in the last stages of life. “She often goes and sits on a bed or is around someone’s room when they’re dying. She’s not 10 for 10, but three-quarters of the time she’s around.”

This isn’t easy work, nor is it financially rewarding. But where others might see darkness, Simon sees light.

“I feel like it’s a privilege to be here,” she says. “It’s maybe how some people feel about working in maternity: that’s a special place because life begins there, and this is end of life. I think that’s a special time. It’s not always viewed as a special time in our society, because death is not really talked about that much. But that’s how I see it. I have to do as much as I can for people while they’re here and make it a good death.”