Hospice Workers Deserve Our Gratitude, Too
Nov 30, 2020
November is Hospice and Palliative Care Month. It’s a time to celebrate our hospice and palliative care workers, remember those who’ve utilized these services, and educate people about the importance of hospice and palliative care.
Hospice is not a place; it’s a set of services offered as a Medicare benefit once curative treatments for a terminal illness have been stopped. Most often hospice takes place in the home, and occasionally in a hospice facility or hospital. Hospice services are provided by a team of professionals who support a person’s whole self, including their medical, social-emotional, and spiritual needs.
Before joining Compassion & Choices’ staff as the Medical Outreach Manager, I was a volunteer C&C educator and hospice and palliative care chaplain. Although every hospice staff person and volunteer is important, Medicare recognizes four functions that are essential: Medical Director (physician), Nurse, Social Worker and Spiritual Care Provider (Chaplain). Other critical roles are bereavement counselor and nursing or home care aids. All collaborate in this work that, while often involving grief, also produces so much loving care. The greatest honor of my life has been to serve on the hospice or palliative care team to serve the spiritual, physical and emotional needs of the terminally ill or dying and their families. To be there during transition and death is to be present for the sacred.
Since joining Compassion & Choices, I’ve spoken at conferences across the country (and now virtually) to doctors, nurses, social workers and pharmacists about the importance of the full spectrum of end-of-life care. Hospice and palliative care is superb at managing distressing symptoms at the end of life, yet sometimes we just can’t do this as well as we all want to. Along with all of the pain, anxiety, nausea and spiritual distress, the patient also defines their own requirements for autonomy and dignity. It is at these times that equity and access to end of life options are especially important.
I want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that our hospice teams do. Thank you for what you did for my Mom and my Dad and so many of us. Who doesn’t know someone whose loved one received loving care from a hospice worker? Thank you hospice and palliative care doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, aids and volunteers for all you do, especially during the COVID pandemic.
Recently, Compassion & Choices launched a Healthcare Advisory Council in order to unite healthcare professionals across an interdisciplinary spectrum in the charge of advocating for improved and accessible end-of-life care. Everyone, regardless of where they live or their identity should have access to compassionate care.
