CAIRO – A Canadian Muslim nurse has garnered an honorable mention in the 2016 Toronto Star’s Nightingale Awards in recognition of her compassion to the vulnerable homeless population, helping them to live and die with dignity.

“The homeless get sick, too, and they die just like the rest of us … and our goal is let them die wherever they call home, if possible,” Namarig Ahmed, the community nurse coordinator for Palliative Education and Care for the Homeless (PEACH), told Toronto Star.

“For most of them, that would be the shelter they spend their nights in.”

Offering help to the homeless, shelters usually have restrictions on its residents.

For example, everyone has to leave during the day for cleaning, which might be difficult for people too ill to get out of bed.

Moreover, they do not admit outsiders after dark, including medical staff.

Trying to offer dignity for the homeless, the staff at Inner City Health Associates (ICHA), an organization with roughly 60 family doctors and psychiatrists who provide care through shelters, recognized the need for palliative care for this population and began conversations with Community Care Access Centre (CCAC).

Ahmed, who has been working as a nurse for seven year, was asked if she would co-ordinate the program.

“I didn’t think I had the emotional or mental capacity to deal with the level of loss those experiencing homelessness have endured, and provide the support they need … all the barriers they face in their lives … who they tried to be and who they couldn’t be,” Ahmed said.

Though rejecting the idea at first, that changed after she agreed to try it out for awhile.

“The work is in its own way deep and beautiful … humbling, inspiring … I’ve learned from them how to be more human … both as a nurse and as a person. We’re all the same, wanting the same thing, having the same ability to love and be loved.”

Comfort

Accepting the position, Ahmed now works with 20 to 25 clients at any given time as well as educating shelter staff about how to care for palliative patients.

“It’s essentially comfort care. Not just for pain management, or shortness of breath and nausea, but also psychosocial comfort and support from anxiety and depression … social isolation,” she said.

Thanks to the new shelter, the homeless are offered care and community among the other shelter residents, who “provide a different level of support and feeling of home,” and they have the shelter workers, who Ahmed says “give so much, and care so well for these people.”

A homeless man, dying of cancer, was allowed recently to die at the place he called home.

The place was simply the shelter he’d stayed in for several years.

“He was so grateful to be back where he considered home, he was able to sleep more comfortably that night. He died a few weeks later,” Ahmed recalled.

This place was not possible without partners , including Hospice Toronto and CCAC.

“It’s important to know who the players are so you can get them the right help,” she saod.

Although the PEACH program is “one step closer to dying with dignity, and with as little pain or discomfort as possible, we’re still trying to find better way to deal with this,” Ahmed says.

“Having conversations with other health-care providers is a vital first step to find a solution and make this care accessible to all.”

“The economy is skewed, and we now see different types of homeless in the shelters, including an elderly population unable to maintain living standards on Old Age Security. These are people likely needing palliative care at some point.”

Ahmed praised the people she serves for keeping her determined to deliver the best care.

“Sometimes, I go into a visit and prepare myself for it being emotionally taxing. Inevitably, I end up coming away inspired by their level of hope,” she said.