Living Well Whilst Dying…A conversation between friends

Nancy Parks with Jay MacGillivray

Living Well Whilst Dying…A Conversation Between Friends will highlight the annual general meeting of Hospice Prince Edward, Thursday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m.
in the Picton United Church Centennial Hall
Guest speaker Jay MacGillivray was honoured earlier this year as recipient of the prestigious Casey Award. Toronto’s Casey House, founded in 1988, provides treatment, support and palliative care for people living with HIV/AIDS. The Casey Awards were created to recognize pioneering leadership and activism in the fields of HIV/AIDS and social justice.
MacGillivrary, who calls Prince Edward County home, was honoured for 30 years work providing care, compassion and support to people living with HIV and striving to provide people with dignity and compassion during life’s most pivotal moments: birth and death. She is one of Ontario’s first registered midwives, and co-founded The Positive Pregnancy Program which provides comprehensive pregnancy, birth and postpartum care to HIV-positive mothers, and their babies.
“Jay is a person with deep emotional roots and family in the County,” notes Nancy Parks, Hospice Prince Edward Executive Director. “Jay was involved with other friends trying to care for these people,” said Parks, “and they together founded one of Toronto’s first hospices, Trinity Home Hospice.
“My first work was with people nobody else cared about – those in the sex trade, homeless, people without family and community,” MacGillivray said. “I will always remember the first women, Joan. She had no family, no friends and she had lung cancer. She opened my eyes to the fundamental importance of life: how you live your life and treat the people around you, carefully, properly, respectfully, with expertise and kindness during birth and death says something about us as a community and as a society. All other things are secondary.”