Bakersfield Life

The heart of hospice

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         Losing a loved one can be emotionally draining and heart-breaking.
         But the process can be easier to cope with proper assistance
         When Dawni Fauke realized her mother had reached a point where she needed constant care, she turned Hoffman Hospice for assistance.
          “We were going to try and care for her ourselves until my mom got to the point where she was very very sick,” Fauke said. “I felt like Hoffman was an advocate for her, and they were there to look out for her best interest.”
           The support was unforgettable.
          “It wasn’t just the medical attention. Hoffman sent volunteers to watch TV with her, read with her, walk and talk to her,” Fauke said. “They also helped me. They would break things down for me, and they gave me ideas to cope.”
           Hospice care provides medical attention for terminally ill patients and support for family members but some still don’t see hospice care for the good it can do.
          “I associated hospice with a negative connotation, but had the exact opposite experience,” Fauke said. “They are caring and have so much patience and never made it feel like a business.”
         Beth Hoffman, director of operations for Hoffman Hospice, said there are many reasons why people refuse to consider hospice.
         “Lack of communication between patient and family or patient and physician, denial that death is near or a mistaken belief that hospice care is unaffordable or only for the imminently dying are a few reasons why people refuse to consider hospice care,” Hoffman said.
           Todd Jeffries, director of operations for Optimal Hospice Care, encouraged loved ones to try the service for a week or two. They can always discontinue the services, if it isn’t what they expected.
            “We often find that families have the impression that hospice is reserved for the last few days of life, but we can help people enjoy the time they have so much more when we get the opportunity to provide support for the last several months of a person’s life,” Jeffries said.
            If you decide that hospice care is something you need to help your loved one live their final moments the best possible, then you can look into the services provided by          Hoffman Hospice, founded in 1995, or Optimal Hospice Care, founded in 1998.
             Hoffman Hospice offers a host of end-of-life services for adults, children and their families. Services include pain and symptom management, physician and social services, spiritual and bereavement services, medial equipment, medications and 24-hour access to on-call hospice nurses.
            “In addition, our volunteers work with our patients, and we offer wonderful supplemental services like private transportation, pet therapy, massage therapy and a program that helps patients celebrate anniversaries, birthdays or other special occasions,” Hoffman said.
            The Optimal Hospice Care team consists of nurses, doctors, certified home health aides, medical social workers, spiritual counselors and volunteers who provide companionship and support for the family.
             “When the focus of medical care changes from cure to comfort, Optimal Hospice Care can provide physical, emotional, practical and spiritual support for the entire family,” Jeffries said. “By utilizing the most modern pain and symptom management techniques combined with a compassionate support system, hospice helps reduce the overwhelming stress and anxiety that can come with caring for a loved one with a life-limiting illness.”
              Hospices also offer assistance for the families of terminally ill patients.
“In many hospice situations, providing physical comfort from pain and disease-related symptoms may be the easy part of the hospice team’s job.  In these cases, it may be that providing an outlet for grief, reducing stress and lowering the anxiety level is the main focus for the hospice team,” Jeffries said.
              Hospice care also consists of counselors and volunteers who can guide patients and families through the overwhelming grief and anxiety associated with the loss of a loved one.
            “Medical social workers and spiritual counselors are available to be a listening ear and to help process thoughts, fears and concerns,” Jeffries said.
Optimal Hospice Care grief support groups are conducted on a weekly basis and are open to not only hospice families but for anyone in the community who would like to attend.  Optimal also has support groups just for children.
            “People often say that they can’t understand how we can work with the dying — that it must be the most depressing job ever. But it’s not,” Hoffman said. “Each of us will die one day. We can’t do anything about that, but we can sure make the end-of-life journey a whole lot easier.”


For more information about hospice care visit optimalcares.com or hoffmannhospice.org.