National Hospice Work Group - Expanding Boundaries

Access to Hospice Care: Expanding Boundaries, Overcoming Barriers, a report drawn from a three-year study of hospice access and values issues conducted by The Hastings Center and the National Hospice Work Group, a voluntary association of progressive hospices, was published as a Special Supplement accompanying the March/April 2003 issue of the bioethics journal, the Hastings Center Report...

The report also offers a new vision of hospice, one that holds firm to many of the traditions and values of the past but finds new and more flexible ways to deliver care. The model of traditional hospice care as an independent and specialized service will gradually be transformed into a more comprehensive model in which hospice becomes the coordinating center for a range of services and types of expertise that can be accessed by patients. In the authors’ new vision, America’s hospices will play an expanded role in addressing more of the supportive and symptom relief needs of patients confronting life-limiting illnesses and their families for longer periods and in a wider variety of settings and contexts...

To achieve this ambitious goal, policies must change and powerful cultural taboos surrounding death and dying must be overcome. What’s needed are a national program of professional education about hospice and palliative care and a massive social marketing campaign regarding hospice programs’abilities to address and resolve many of the most widely held fears about the end of life...

// Have any hospice leaders expressed reservations about what was done to her? //

YES -- when Terri was being starved in Oct '03 I called the hospice center that had helped with the HOME care of a family member. I was told that they were not at all in agreement with what was being done to Terri; the the hospice of Suncoast was sending out mailers to other hospices in apparent PR move.

OTOH, a friend's family member's experience at the hospice here in Jax was not good -- ended up leaving and going home, which gave him and the family the control they needed.

Thanks for the link, tut.

Thanks for finding this. I got distracted, but bookmarked some other things:

http://www.parkridgecenter.org/Page515.html
The Parkridge Center for Health, Faith, and Ethics:
Spirituality in Hospice The challenge of success
by Paul R. Brenner

http://www.parkridgecenter.org/Page515.html
Philanthropy Roundtable:
Dying for the Cause
Foundation funding for the “right-to-die” movement

By Rita Marker

"Few people realize the vital role private foundations play in promoting societal change. More often than not, major shifts in public attitudes and public policy come not from grassroots clamor but rather from the hard work of a committed few-activists with the ideas and the donors who fund them.

This is especially true for movements that begin with shallow popular appeal or in which much work is needed to change public attitudes. Without the money that is the mother’s milk of public advocacy, those inspired to agitate for change would not get very far."

Liberty Reigns

I've sent two emails to my Georgia State Senator and Representative regarding this "cult of death."

I just do not believe this is happening in America. OR that other Americans don't see how wrong it is to kill the elderly, the infirm, the disabled and the unborn.

America will come toppling down around her knees if she doesn't wake up and contain the evil within.

This just can't be happening, but it is.

Someone pinch me, I want to wake up and live.

I found this tonight while looking through the Asheville Citizens Times and thought it might be of interest.

Hospice plans end-of-life conference
SPECIAL TO THE CITIZEN-TIMES
published: April 14, 2005 6:00 am

CLYDE - Each year the Hospice Foundation of America presents a nationally recognized distance learning program, live via satellite, to more than 125,000 people in 2,000 communities.

It provides an opportunity for doctors, nurses, ethicists, educators, social workers and bereavement counselors - to share and exchange ideas and obtain continuing education credits.

This year HFA's 12th Annual National Bereavement Teleconference focuses on "Ethical Dilemmas at the End of Life."

The subject generates an array of opinions on methods to improve the quality of life for the terminally ill. Moderated by Cokie Roberts, ABC News political commentator and NPR senior news analyst, the program will be broadcast from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Wednesday.

"We are thrilled to be able to offer such an important educational event in our community," said Julie Stegall, the hospital's Hospice Support Services supervisor. "We encourage all members of the community to attend this free opportunity."

The public is invited to attend. Reserve a seat by calling 452-8696. Hospice is also offering continuing education credit for a $25 processing fee.

The teleconference is produced by Hospice Foundation of America, a not-for-profit organization, which acts as an advocate for the hospice concept of care, through ongoing programs of professional education, public information and research on issues relating to illness, loss, grief and bereavement.

This year the program is produced in cooperation with The Hastings Center, an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit bioethics research institute founded in 1969 to explore fundamental and emerging questions in health care, biotechnology, and the environment.

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050414/NEWS01/504140306/1009

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