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NOVEMBER 13,1997 AUGUSTA FOCUS
November is National Hospice Month
St. Joseph Hospice offers loving environment for terminally ill patients
By Mironda Gastiaburo
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
Dying and death are not easy for
most patients and their families to
deal with. Death often involves
physical, emotional and spiritual
pain for everyone involved. St. Jo
seph Hospice is here to help termi
nally ill patients and their families
through these difficult times.
“There are two things these
people fear the most. They are dy
ing in pain and dying alone,” said
Russell Moores, hospice medical
director. “Our staffand volunteers
help see that these things don’t
happen.”
“Death is never a good thing,”
he said. “But St. Joseph Hospice
is about making the time up to
death and the actual death as
good and comfortable as it can
be.” St. Joseph Hospice was
started in 1979 when Sister Rose
McCarney and St. Joseph Hospi
tal determined a need for its ser
|vices.
Hospice offers total care of termi
'nally ill patients in cases where
'nmormal cure procedures aren’t
working and the patient has about
,Bix months left to live.
| “We are there to help with the
:physical needs of the patients and
, with the emotional and social needs
‘of both the patients and their fami
ilies, who are usually the primary
;caregiversin thesesituations,”said
‘Moores. “We offer services like
'nurses, homemaker aides, physi
.cal therapists, social workers, nurs
:ing assistants, chaplains, volunteers
‘and grief counselors,” he said. Other
Iservices offered by St. Joseph Hos
. pice include dieticians, occupational
‘therapyandspeechtherapy. Allthese
-services help ease the pain of dying
for the patients and the pain of loss
for their families.
« “The biggest problem we [medical
field] face is that most peaple don’t
get adequate pain control. Most phy
sicians don’t deal with chronic pain
.and dying patients, so they under
medicate their patients. Part of what
we do for these patients is make sure
their pain is under control.”
- In addition to caring for the
patient’s physical need and pain
control, St. Joseph Hospice work
.ers help both the patient and fam
ily with emotional pain and spiri
tual pain and upheaval that they
feel. “Often, even if the patient has
never set foot in a church, they go
through a great deal of spiritual
upheaval duringtheirlast months,
wondering ‘Why me? Why am I
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The chapel is only one of the many services that St. Joseph
hospice offers. Photo by Charles Jones
dying when this other person who's
my age is still walking around do
ing fine? That’s when our chaplain
and volunteers can be very help
ful,” said Moores.
Nurses, chaplains and the medical
director are on call 24-hours a day.
The family is assisted in contracting
extended hourly care for their loved
one and 24-hour respite may be ar
ranged for crisis of caregivers.
To be admitted to hospice, the
patient, family of the patient and
attending physician must all agree
that admittal to hospice is best for
the patient. “Sometimes attending
physicians just can't let go or give
up and feel that there’s always one
more treatment to try, or the fam
ily doesn’t want to feel like they’re
giving up, so we can’t admit these
patients to hospice care,” said
Moores. “But, when everyone
agrees that it’s for the best, pa
tients are admitted and certified
for three months of care,” he said.
“We are a nonprofit hospice, so no
one is turned away because of inabil
ity to pay for their care,” said Moores.
St. Joseph Hospice offers in-home
care in the following Georgia and
South Carolina counties: Burke, Co
Livingßetter
lumbia, Emanuel, Glascock,
Hancock, Jefferson, Jenkins,
Johnson, Lincoln, McDuffie, Rich
mond, Screven, Taliaferro, Warren,
Washington, Wilkes, Aiken, Barnwell
and Edgefield.
St. Joseph Hospice also has a
small, five-bed inpatient facility at
St. Joseph Hospital. This facility is
used when patients’ symptoms are
too much for family to handle and
when the family needs a break
from the constant care the patient
requires.
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St. Joseph Hospice and Home Health Care is now located at
Daniel Village in the old Bi-Lo building. Photo by Charles Jones
Hospice is not as much about
death and dying as it is about life
and living. Its services are deliv
ered primarily in the home, provid
ing health care directed at manag
ing symptoms, and supportive care
for patients and their families. The
emphasis is being at home, when
ever possible, to minimize isola
tion and increase comfort.
Through its individualized and
family-centered approach, St. Joseph
Hospice blends the skills and techni
cal abilities ofhealth care profession
als with the openness, warmth and
time flexibility of home care.
Referrals to St. Joseph Hospice
may be made by anyone. Most com
monly, referrals come from attend
ing physicians and social workers,
but they may also come from the
patients, family members, clergy
and other health professionals. To
make a hospice referral, call (706)
481-7490 or (800) 533-3949 in Au
gusta, and (803) 641-8220 or (800)
381-2273 in Aiken. A hospice staff
person will take the referral infor
mation and contact the patient’s
attending physician.
During Hospice Month, St.
Joseph Hospice holds an
event to raise public aware
ness about hospice care. This
year, they will present A
Night of Remembrance,
Thursday, from 7 -9 p.m. at
St. Joseph Hospital. Hun
dreds of candles, each dedi
cated to the memory of an
individual, will light the path
of remembrance. The pro
gram will also feature a mu
sical program and an im
pressive lighting ceremony.
Memorial contributions are
encouraged to help St. Jo
seph Hospice continue their
services.
Be Home In Time For Dinner —Thanks To
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probably have vou home in time for dinner ;
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Regionally Kiown, Locally Trusted
More employees turning
down job-offered insurance
By Alice Ann Love
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
WASHINGTON
Millions of American workers
reject health insurance available
through their own or a family
member’s job, and most remain
uninsured, a study shows.
About six million workers who
could have been covered by job
related plans turned them down
last year, Health Affairs, a journal
of the health education founda
tion Project HOPE, said in the
study published Monday.
That’s almost 1 1/2 times the
number of pecple who turned down
employment group health plans
just a decade ago. The number of
workers with access to them — 82
million —isroughly thesame asin
1987.
The majority of those rejecting
coverage, 4.6 million, chose to re
main uninsured, the study found.
“Workers are deciding that health
insurance is not valuable enough
to them for the cost,” study co
author Barbara Schone said.
Schone, an economist at the
Agency for Health Care Policy and
Research, and research partner
Philip Cooper said their findings
cast doubt that recent government
efforts to decrease theranks of the
country’s4l million uninsured will
work.
Government planners contend
it can be done by making worker
health insurance universally ac
cessible. But the economists con
cluded in their report that policies
may alsobe needed that are “aimed
at improving the rate at which
workers accept coverage.”
For example, some workers
might respond better if companies
offered more choices, such as less
expensive catastrophic insurance
policies that cover only medical
emergencies.
The researchers said they did
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buy a subscription to Augusta Focus
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not seek to determine why increas
ing numbers of people are turning
down health coverage offered by
employers.
Some clues appeared, however,
in their data on workers ages 21 to
64, taken from broader agency
surveys of Americans’ medical
spending habits.
They found, for instance, that
about a million people preferred to
purchase other private health in
surance coverage rather than par
ticipate in a work-related group
plan.
“That might indicate they’re not
happy with the benefits their em
ployer is offering,” Cooper said.
For other people, the plans may
simply be too expensive.
More than 760,000 of those who
declined employer-sponsored in
surance get such low incomes they
qualify for public insurance, such
as Medicaid. Refusals of job-re
lated plans are most common and
have increased fastest among
workers making less than $7 an
hour and those under age 25.
Skyrocketing medical costs in
the last decade have left signifi
cantly fewer companies willing to
pay the total cost of health insur
ance offered toemployees and their
families, said Paul Fronstin, a
health economist with the Em
ployee Benefit Research Institute.
“People are opting out because
they don’t feel their portion of the
premium is affordable,” he said.
To save money, healthy young
workers may be the most willing
to risk going without health insur
ance.
“They’re starting out in their
first job. They’re not making very
much money,” Fronstin said. “It’s
a choice between buying some
thing they don’t think they’re go
ing to need and having money to
pay therent and buy a car and pay
student loansand other things they
need.”