Inside the new children’s hospice that will bring comfort to Hamilton families

For Danielle Zucchet, Dec. 4, 2010, is a day that’s forever etched in her memory. After three years of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, her seven-year-old son, Keaton, died in her arms after a battle with Stage 4 cancer at McMaster Children’s Hospital.

“Nobody likes to think about a child being sick or a child dying, but it is a reality,” says Ms. Zucchet, chief executive of Kemp Care Network, a palliative care organization in the Greater Hamilton Area that offers grief and bereavement programs, a residential hospice and advanced care planning guidance. “When you think about a family, like ours, who receives this kind of diagnosis, there’s not only the grieving in terms of what their child’s life expectancy is going to be, but it’s also the loss of what you thought your life was going to be like with that child.”