Home Care & Hospice Month

By Yvette Rivera, BA

What is Hospice Care? The goal of hospice is to focus on care, comfort, and quality of life of a person facing a life-limiting illness. With that, clinicians can provide pain and symptom management through routine home care, general inpatient care, inpatient respite care, as well as continuous home care. Hospice is associated with a number of common misconceptions, rest assured that “Hospice does not mean giving up hope, but rather choosing quality over quantity”.

November is recognized as National Home Care and Hospice month. The home care and hospice community honors those who strive to make a difference for the patients and families they serve. This month HOPE would like to recognize the efforts of our nurses, home care aides, therapists, social workers, and chaplains that play an integral role in our healthcare system as well as in the homes of our patients. These highly trained professionals provide the highest level of quality medical care with emotional and spiritual support that families need most when facing the end of life.

This month, Hope Hospice wanted to shine a spotlight on one of our beloved patients Carol Ayers. Carol has been under Hope Hospice care since March 2022 and was generous enough to share some of her experiences with Hope Hospice. When asked about her experience with HOPE, Carol stated “I haven’t had a bad experience with hospice. I enjoy all my visits from the team”. Carol is an avid member of a congregation and enjoys attending weekend services when she can. With that, Carol relayed that she truly appreciates our Chaplain visits. The purpose of our Chaplain visits is, but not limited to, providing both religious and spiritual comfort to our patients. Carol asked to recognize one of our many experienced Chaplains, Fr. Cesar Pajarillo. Carol alluded to how she not only enjoys when he gives communion to her on his visits, but also when he reads her some of the bible verses. Though our Chaplains may not visit everyday, they always leave their mark. Fr. Cesar was generous enough to leave Carol a bible stick that will read bible verses aloud for her when he is not there to do so. Carol was certainly appreciative of this gift from Fr. Cesar. Aside from the religious and spiritual comfort Fr. Cesar has provided Carol. Carol stated that she also enjoys hearing about his travels and his experiences visiting veteran affairs homes. This is a true representation of what our goal is here at Hope Hospice, to be not only caring clinicians but loving friends to our patients.