It was the last thing I wanted to do. There was no item on my to-do list that involved thinking about my having a medical emergency or about my death. That’s all changed now – not due to any personal crisis but thanks to a local organization’s efforts prompting us to consider these matters before it’s too late.
I have the good fortune to be relatively healthy for someone born in the middle of the last century. But that puts me in an age bracket that, statistically, sits in a proverbial “red zone” for potential serious illness and mortality.
If I collapsed into unconsciousness, how quickly could first responders determine if I had a long-term health condition? Did I have a health condition that would make chest compressions dangerous? Who among my loved ones should they notify?
If only there were a practical way that we could provide readily accessible answers to these crucial questions! Well, there is a way, and my opportunity to learn about it came in a workshop organized by the Sunshine Coast Hospice Society.
The key workshop focus is the Green Sleeve, a name made easier to remember thanks to the 16th-century folk song, Greensleeves, and by the fact that the plastic sleeve is indeed an easy-to-spot bright green. The kit contains the information needed by family and first responders in a medical emergency – and it was developed on the Sunshine Coast.
When COVID began hitting B.C. communities in 2020, Hospice volunteers Jackie Scott and Joan Hibbard were working with local palliative-care specialist Dr. Carmen Goojha to help inform people about some of the challenges of pandemic medical care.
“We thought, wasn’t it a pity that there isn’t a place or a way that we can store [medical] documents and communicate them if something happens to us,” Scott said during the two-hour workshop I attended. “So, out of that first conversation, we began working with a paramedic from BC Emergency Health Services, with nurses from the shíshálh First Nation, and with the palliative-care team with Dr. Goojha, to develop the Sunshine Coast Green Sleeve.”
Pender Harbour paramedic Yvonne Lewis related her first-hand experience in a video, “I don’t know how many homes I’ve been in where we’re looking through bathroom cabinets for medications, we’re looking through the kitchen for documentation, looking at your purses and wallets to try and find health cards and information.”
Today, if first responders were to come to my home, they’d see two small, green-dot stickers by the front door. That’s an indication that the occupants, my wife Heather and I, have Green Sleeves either attached to the refrigerator or placed obviously in a drawer or cupboard nearby.
What they’d find in our Green Sleeves are emergency information forms containing pertinent information about our health history and conditions, any prescriptions we’re on, our doctor’s name and phone number, who our emergency contacts are and how to reach them. Being armed with this data makes first responders’ jobs much more straightforward and they can get patients into an ambulance and to the ER more confidently and quickly.
The Green Sleeve workshop, offered free around the Coast several times a year, also delves into advance care planning – deep waters that can be tricky to navigate.
You don’t have to have been born in the middle of the last century to get your free Green Sleeve. In fact, anyone older than 50 would be smart to complete one. The information can be updated anytime. Close to 3,000 kits have been distributed to Coast residents so far.
You can learn more about the Green Sleeve program, workshop dates or arranging for trained volunteers to help you get it ready at www.coasthospice.com/acp. Coast Hospice will be at London Drugs on Friday, July 26 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. to distribute the free kit and answer questions.
