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Misconceptions
About Hospice...
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This article appeared in the Johnstown Tribune and is being reprinted here for the benefit of those who may not have seen it.
MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT HOSPICE
by Emma Strapple
Hospice - what a wonderful program. How often I hear this when people ask me where I work. It is a wonderful program, but the “goodness” of it is often lost in misconceptions.
No one knows better than most of us working in this hospice program what it means to lose someone you love. It is not always easy to accept and to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
What I want everyone to know is that hospice doesn’t and shouldn’t mean that your are going to die tomorrow. So many patients and families, when approached about hospice, replay, “We aren’t ready for that yet”.
Instead, we admit into hospice programs patients who have gone through weeks, maybe even months, of pain, physically and emotionally, only to have them die within a day or two, when so much could have been done. Did these people have that quality of life that we all so much deserve?
Hospice is end-of-life care, the key word being life - living.
Our physicians sometimes can estimate life expectancy, but shouldn’t every remaining day of that person’s life be the best that it can be? Let hospice help achieve this. Hospice expertise in pain management and symptom control is top notch. The moral and emotional support provided by all hospice staff and volunteers is exceptional.
Maybe some of you have seen the commercial on WJAC-TV that Matt Lauer does promoting hospice. He is eloquent in his description of what hospice can do. Let hospice help you.
Another work that goes hand-in-hand with hospice is “palliative,” meaning comfort care. Sometimes it is not realized that a person can be involved with hospice and still be receiving other treatments that are being done for comfort measures, not for cure.
If someone close to you or if someone you know could benefit from involvement in a hospice program, please encourage that person to call hospice and get information that will help in making an informed decision instead of one based on misconceptions or misinformation.
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