Freda H. Gordon Hospice & Palliative Care Celebrates November as National Hospice and Palliative Care Month
Throughout November, Freda H. Gordon Hospice & Palliative Care joined organizations across the nation hosting community activities in recognition of National Hospice and Palliative Care Month.
For more than 40 years, hospice has helped provide comfort and dignity to millions of people, allowing them to spend their final months wherever they call home, surrounded by their loved ones. Hospices ensure that pain management, therapies, and treatments all support a plan of care that is centered on the person’s goals. Hospice care also provides emotional support and advice to help family members become confident caregivers and adjust to the future with grief support for up to a year.
“It is essential that people understand that hospice and palliative care is not giving up, it is not the abandonment of care, and it is not reserved for the imminently dying,” says Edo Banach, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. “Hospice is a successful model of person-centered care that brings hope, dignity, and compassion when they are most needed.”
In 2018, 1.55 million Medicare beneficiaries received care from hospices in this country, reports NHPCO. Hospice is unique in that it offers an interdisciplinary team approach to treatment. Caring for the whole person allows the team to address each patient’s unique needs and challenges.
Kirsten VanAuken, a nurse at Freda H. Gordon Hospice & Palliative Care says, “When I’m asked, ‘Why hospice?’ I believe this time of life is very special and I’d like to help people feel more comfortable to honor and cherish it as much as we do birth. We can learn a lot from experiencing death with a loved one and my mission is to be a source of light during this process.”
Hospices are also some of the best providers of community-based palliative care. Palliative care delivers expertise to improve quality of life and relief from pain. It can be provided at any time during an illness—during and after treatment. Freda H. Gordon is the leading provider of community-based palliative care services in Tidewater, providing care to patients in their homes at any stage of a serious illness.
More information about hospice, palliative care, and advance care planning is available from www.hpctidewater.com or from NHPCO’s CaringInfo.org.