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Guest column

Hospice's care network depends on volunteers

By LINDA WARD
Published November 3, 2005

November is National Hospice Month. Hospice and palliative care are considered to be the model for quality, compassionate care for people facing a life-limiting illness or injury. It is a team-oriented approach to expert medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support that is tailored to the patient's needs and wishes. Support is provided to the patient's loved ones as well. At the heart of hospice and palliative care is the belief that each of us has the right to die pain-free and with dignity, and that our families will receive the necessary support to allow us to do so.

Hospice focuses on caring, not curing. Care can be provided in the patient's home, in a nursing home, assisted living facility, retirement community or free-standing hospice care centers. Hospice services are available to patients of any age, religion, race, or illness. Hospice care is covered under Medicare, Medicaid, most private insurance plans, HMOs and other managed care organizations.

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization notes that the term "hospice" (from the same linguistic root as "hospitality") can be traced back to medieval times, when it referred to a place of shelter and rest for weary or ill travelers on a long journey. The name was first applied to specialized care for dying patients in 1967 by physician Dame Cicely Saunders, who founded the first modern hospice, St. Christopher's Hospice, in a residential suburb of London.

Dame Cicely introduced the idea of specialized care for the dying to the United States during a 1963 visit with Yale University. Her lecture, given to medical students, nurses, social workers and chaplains about the concept of holistic hospice care, included photos of terminally ill cancer patients and their families, showing the dramatic differences before and after the symptom control care. This lecture launched the following chain of events, which resulted in the development of hospice care as we know it today.

The major responsibilities of a hospice team include managing the patient's pain and symptoms, assisting the patient with the emotional and psychosocial and spiritual aspects of dying, providing necessary drugs, medical supplies and equipment, coaching the family on how to care for the patient. Hospice care can also involve delivery of special services like speech and physical therapy when needed; making short-term inpatient care available when pain or symptoms become too difficult to manage at home; providing respite time off for caregivers; and providing bereavement care and counseling to surviving family and friends.

Gulfside Regional Hospice serves more than 220 patients daily, employs more than 150 professionals and has 350 hard-working volunteers. It has taken many years of hands-on work and much community support to maintain the Hospice House and Thrift Shoppes. We have the bereavement center and hospice home in New Port Richey and a hospice home on the eighth floor of the Edwinola in Dade City that serves nine patients.

Gulfside Regional Hospice is supported by a talented, dedicated and diverse board of directors, which supports the mission and serves the community as a liaison to Pasco County professionals and donors.

Gulfside Regional Hospice provides hospice services for appropriate patients regardless of their ability to pay. Whether we care for a patient in one of our hospice houses, nursing or assisted living facilities or in their private homes, Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance cover less than two-thirds of the actual cost of care. Community generosity makes the difference in our ability to provide complementary therapies, specialized volunteer services, community bereavement support and more. It is these programs and the quality health care services we provide that offer the comfort, dignity, compassion and peace that patients, experiencing life-limiting illness, and their families need and deserve.

Volunteers are the heartbeat of hospice. These dedicated people take care of the daily needs of our not-for-profit organization. We know that ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference and that within each of us lies the ability to care for those in need. Thanks to caring people in our communities, Gulfside Regional Hospice has provided end-of-life care to patients and their loved ones in Pasco County since 1988.

Anyone with a desire to serve from all walks of life are welcome to become a part of Gulfside Regional Hospice. Volunteers help patients find relief from pain and suffering so that they may live each day with dignity, peace and comfort. No job is too small.

Linda Ward is vice president of operations at Gulfside Regional Hospice in New Port Richey.

[Last modified November 3, 2005, 01:06:17]