Hospice provides palliative care after reasonable efforts to cure terminal illnesses fail
Unity Hospice in DeSoto, Tennessee is one of many hospice facilities that provide volunteer and professional care to the disabled and dying. Hospice offers palliative care to patients when other reasonable measures to cure their diseases have failed. Unity patients must have a physician’s referral, and services are covered by Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance. There are many more volunteers at the hospice centers than there are staff members, but more volunteers are always welcome to help patients and caregivers make the most of the time they have left.
Contact volunteers must undergo a background check before they can make visits to patient homes or assisted living facilities. These volunteers listen to patients and get to know them, sometimes providing a few hours of relief to caregivers as they read to patients, play music for them and listen to the stories they have to tell.
Non-contact volunteers do things like send out cards, bake cookies, assemble goodie bags, make quilts for patients and conduct handyman services. Christmas trees have even been donated to patients in the past.
Representatives from Unity Hospice want patients and their families to know that they do not have to be on their “last legs” in order to receive services. Instead, it’s easier for patients and caregivers to get support from hospice when relationships are started earlier. When patients leave hospice to die at home, hospice staff and volunteers continue to make home visits until the end. Some caregivers volunteer with hospice in order to help others through the grief process they have already been through with their loved ones.
For the full story, go to Memphis Commercial Appeal.
