VNA Hospice Helps Patients and Families Focus on Quality of Life

VNA-Hospice-helps-patients-and-families-focus-on-quality-of-lifeNovember is National Hospice and Palliative Care Month and hospices across the country are reaching out to raise awareness about the highest quality care for all people coping with life-limiting illness.

“Every year, nearly 1.6 million people living with a life-limiting illness receive care from hospice and palliative care providers in this country,” said J. Donald Schumacher, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. “These highly-trained professionals ensure that patients and families find dignity, respect, and love during life’s most difficult journey.” The Visiting Nurse Association of Porter County is a not for profit organization and was an early hospice advocate and pioneer in the area, providing hospice care across Northwest Indiana since 1983. “Our hospice program has always been cutting edge, providing the most effective pain control and symptom management for our patients, as well as compassionate support for them and their families,” said Maria Galka, Director of Development for the VNA.

Hospice is not a place. Hospice and palliative care programs provide pain management, symptom control, psychosocial support, and spiritual care to patients and their families when a cure is not possible.

Hospice and palliative care combines the highest level of quality medical care with the emotional and spiritual support that families need most when facing the end of life. Through this specialized quality care, we see many patients and their families experience more meaningful moments together. Hospice helps them focus on living despite a terminal diagnoses.

“If I could get one message out about VNA Hospice, it would be ‘Don’t wait until the last moment to call the VNA’,” said Janis Boren, whose husband Al was a VNA Hospice patient. “When you call in VNA Hospice, it’s not giving up, it’s not the end. It’s just the beginning.” Thanks to VNA Hospice and the VNA Hospice We Honor Veterans program, along with Forever Young Senior Vet Wishes, Al was able to complete his bucket list with a visit to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. before his death just a few weeks later.

It’s these special moments of life that are made possible through VNA Hospice. For more information about VNA Hospice, palliative care, and supportive services such as VNA Meals on Wheels, Lifeline, Companion Homemaker and children’s grief support at the VNA Phoenix Center, visit the VNA website at www.VNAportercounty.org or call (219) 462-5195.

Stories showing the many ways hospice makes more special moments possible can be found at www.momentsoflife.org.