Recently someone said to me,
"If I ever know of anyone in the
final stages of life, I'll tell them I about Hope Hospice." My
response was, "Is 'if really the
right word?"
Over the past two
decades at Hope Hospice, we've
seen that people often don't know
a great deal about accessing end-of-
life care, and, as you might
expect, they don't want to even
think about it.
A study conducted for the
National Hospice Foundation
found that Americans are more
likely to talk to their children
about drugs and sex than to talk to
their elderly parents about life-limiting
illness.
Although Americans
may expect quality care in
the final stages of life, we are too
uncomfortable about the subject
to even discuss it with our closest
family members. Lack of communication
leaves people unprepared
for the
.physical and
emotional
strains caused
by life-limiting
illness, but there
are choices in
end-of-life care,
and through
frank, open
conununication,
families can plan to spend
their final time
together in peace and comfort.
November is National Hospice
Month, and becoming familiar
with care and bereavement counseling
at IIope Hospice at this
time will benefit everyone,
patients and families, when facing
end-of-life issues. In Southwest
Florida, Hope Hospice's services
are provided to about 700 people
a day by Hope Hospice ("Hope,"
as we know it), a not-for-profit
health care agency serving people
of all ages. Services are covered
by Medicare, Medicaid and many
insurances.
Hope Hospice provides services
regardless of a patient's ability
to pay. We rely on grants and
conununity support to fund services
for patients with little or no
insurance.
So what does Hope
Hospice's care have to offer that
can really help? How does Hope
make a difference?
Hope Hospice care provides
patients and their families with
the things they truly want and
need. It starts with embracing the
individual as a person, not the
"patient" that the system may try
to make them in order to fit them
into protocols and standard operating
procedures.
Hope Hospice care includes
emotional and spiritual support
for the person and the family, pain
control tailored to the person's
wishes and the choice for the person
to spend their time wherever
they call home. In fact, Hope Hospice
is more than a place. It is a
concept of care that treats the
person, not the disease, and
emphasizes the quality of life, not
the duration.
The Hope Hospice team of
caregivers works with patients
and their families to develop individualized
plans of care that are
designed to ease the patient's
physical and emotional pain.
Hope Hospice caregivers provide
emotional support to the patient
and their family during the most
difficult time of their lives so that
they can "put their lives in order"
and make the last stage in life
even more meaningful.
Hope
Hospice providers are dedicated
to the notion that the end of life is
one of life's stages and that it
should be lived fully and peacefully
with the support of friends
and family.
Hope Hospice provides all of
the things that our patients need
most: freedom from pain, emotional
and spiritual support and
the ability to control the direction
of their own care.
Only by
embracing the importance of discussing
the final stage of life decisions
can we improve care for the
dying in America. Families must
be encouraged to freely discuss
the type of care they would like to
receive during a life-limiting illness
because choices do exist.
As
the concept of Hope Hospice
proves, people do not need to live
out their lives in pain or in fear.
Only by discussing and learning
about our choices can we truly
receive the type of care we want
and deserve.
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