ONE OF US: Her career has transformed Hospice

Florida Times Union ^ | December 15, 2003 | Charlie Patton

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When Trudy Harris went to work in 1981 as a nurse for Community Hospice, the organization was tiny and struggling against both a lack of resources and a lack of acceptance within the medical community.

In those days, the staff worked out of an office at Methodist Hospital, serving half a dozen clients. Many medical professionals regarded the whole hospice concept with suspicion and treated those working in hospices with condescension, Harris remembers.

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The idea that instead of keeping people alive at any cost, medicine should help people die as comfortably as possible was slow to catch on.

The Terri Schiavo case has peaked my interest in hospice. And the above comment even makes me wonder more whether I would want to be in one. There seems to be too many ties to right-to-die groups and when you mention 'extending dying' it makes me suspicious as exactly how far they(hospice in general) are willing to go to hasten death.

[tutstar]

FYI an article re hospice....

[Judith Anne]

Your comments are interesting. In my opinion, as a nurse, Terry Schiavo's case is NOT appropriate for hospice, due to her high potential for rehabilitation.

On the other hand, hospice nursing does have an important place. People with incurable cancer and other terminal diseases often are quite lucid and aware of what is going to happen to them. Hospice offers appropriate measures to treat other illnesses (i.e., kidney infections, pneumonia) that go along with cancer, appropriate palliative surgery and chemotherapy, and most important, pain relief.

I wish that hospice care had been available when my mother died thirty one years ago of ovarian cancer...it would have been nice to have her at home, rather than spending her last days in the hospital. She did recieve all possible pain relief, and that was a comfort not only to her, but to us.

[LADY J]

I had always thought of Hospice as loving care and support for the patient and their family to make the last days filled with compassion for their needs and comfort.

Terri Schiavo's case has given me another look at this. The coldness and calculating way the guardian and judges have shown to Terri is beyond human decency.

I would not want someone I love under their care.

[Lee Heggy]

During the six months of my wife's terminal illness with brain cancer I exhausted myself caring for her. I couldn't have survived without the help of Hospice. I volunteer now several times a month to go and give a break to others who are experiencing what I went through. When the meds no longer work to fight the disease and all that can be done is to ease pain and fear is when Hospice is like a host of angels. If one has never been a caregiver it's hard to convey just how much that means. Hospice is there for the living as well as the dying. I know that I surely would have died myself if they hadn't taken up some of the burden. They are not all alike and some have different methods but the philosophy is the same. Death is not alway's our enemy. To leave this world with dignity and love should be every decent persons right.

[concerned about politics]

Harris, who is retiring this month as president of The Community Hospice Foundation, helped raise $41 million.

By conning old people into willing everything they've ever owned to Hospice. Once the will is signed, they die quickly.
Hospice has become another money grubbing wing of the pro-death left.
It's like the Red Cross. They support left wing causes at the expence of the innocent and ignorant.

[Judith Anne]

Hospice in my area is free of charge to the patient. If there is insurance, they charge only what it pays. If Medicare, then the same. Otherwise, no charge.

[T'wit]

Those "nice" words won't make a dime's worth of difference. Whatever the rationale, hospices are death camps. The bigger and more commercial they are, the sooner they will put you down. The quicker you die, the more money you save them and the bigger their profit. That's what businesses are supposed to achieve, isn't it?

Here's my living will: keep me the heck out of these places.

[tutstar]

I'm sorry for what you went through. I do realize that hospice does a lot to help families, my own grandmother is currently be helped by hospice volunteers even though she is in a nursing home. I know that we can't pigeonhole and stereotype any group because of the actions of a few.
There have been some things which several of us freepers have found recently which ties some hospices to the former Hemlock society and we are concerned that they do not hasten death.
I have not been through what you have and would not attempt to diminish your pain by pretending I did. I will pray for you! It sounds like you are a positive factor for hospices.
with respect...

[tutstar]

thanks for your input, I feel for those of you whose parents have passed on. I have not had to go through that yet.

[Judith Anne]

Thanks for telling about your positive experience with hospice. Hospice workers in my area teach families to give medication, even by feeding tube or IV, allowing patients to stay at home; aides come in to bathe the patient and change linens, hospital beds are rented for the patients, they get to stay home as long as they want to, even until the end if that is their wish, the hospice nurse calls on the patient as often as necessary, even daily or twice a day, calls the doctor for the family, brings medication, etc.

It's what I want, if I don't die quickly.

Here, hospice will not take a case unless the prognosis is certain; the patient must be terminally ill, with death expected in six months or less.

[LADY J]

"Here, hospice will not take a case unless the prognosis is certain; the patient must be terminally ill, with death expected in six months or less."

This was my understanding too. What is Terri doing in Hospice where they are insisting on the removal of her feeding tube so that she dies?

It's good that some Hospice organizations do such wonderful work - but we all must take a stand against the ones that do not.

[concerned about politics]

Hospice in my area is free of charge to the patient. If there is insurance, they charge only what it pays. If Medicare, then the same. Otherwise, no charge.

But they would certainly ask you to remember them in your will, and make sure all donations from the funeral go to Hospice.
They even have spam mail asking people to remember them in their will.
They're the ones supporting eithinasia for the elderly. Once that door is open, anyone would be a target.
Often, things start out as something good. Once the left wing special interest groups move it, the organization becomes as corrupt as all the others. Hospice is no longer an organization who's goal is to simply confort the terminally ill. It's become money oriented.

[Lee Heggy]

I have very little use for Hemlock Societies and such. Whenever there is money involved there are those who try to figure some angle. The Hospice that helped me was very up front about the cost. There wasn't any. In return I have voluteered my time and make an annual small donation. Anyone that would use the concept of Hospice care to make a buck is beneath contempt and those seeking Hospice assistance need to be careful to make the right choice. It will be one year tomorrow that my wife passed and my little Pomeranian dogs and I will spend some of it with folks like your grandmother. Giving a little back is all I am doing and helping someone who is perhaps feeling abandoned, old and in the way have a little bit of cheer. It's the least I can do.

[Judith Anne]

As I said above, Terri Schiavo is not a candidate for hospice due to her lengthy survival already, and her strong potential for rehabilitation.

I support Terry Schiavo and her valiant fight for her own life. She wants to live, she wants to communicate, and it should be possible. I am outraged that she is even considered for hospice. This is a travesty.

[Judith Anne]

Nice post. Good point about having people who contact hospice agencies to have their eyes open.

[LADY J]

" I am outraged that she is even considered for hospice. This is a travesty."

I agree with you. The problem I'm having is why this fight to make sure that Terri dies is so high on the agenda that they won't give this one person the option of life. There HAS to be a reason and I'd like to know what it is.

[Doctor Notes]

I'm a little lost on the whole "Big Brother" theory of the "They" in this comment... "They" (hospices) are staffed with real humans like you and me. They aren't necessarily democrat, republican, murderers or angels but often they are individuals with the special talent of dealing with death daily. It takes a lot to spend time with someone who is dying, get to know their family, their kids and spouse, hear them crying and suffering and then go home and wrap Christmas presents.

Home hospice care is common in our area. You are sent home to die. My wife's grandmother had pancreatic cancer with a tumor the size of a football hanging off of her emaciated frame. It ate into her stomach and esophagus. She died at home in her own bed at 72. She never had a driver's license and was loathe to be away from home and family. I glad she didn't sit in a hospital to die.

Hospice care can be construed as whatever you want, but I don't think that most of the people working in hospice (THEY!!!) are people looking to knock off as many patients as possible. Just who is this "They" anyway? Nurses do the one on one care (for less than $20 an hour) -- guided by physicians who make money only if the patient is still alive. Nurses aren't allowed to do anything detrimental to a patient EVEN IF A DOCTOR ORDERS IT as they are liable for everything that they do.

By the time you've made it to hospice care, you know you are dying, you are trying to grow comfortable with that fact, and someone's coming round to see you a couple of times a day (or once or staying with you) to help you be as COMFORTABLE as possible while the lights are going dim.

[Judith Anne]

My opinion is this: If Terri can communicate, then she can testify against her husband, who in my opinion, tried and is STILL trying, to kill her.

[Judith Anne]

Thanks.